Joseph Addison Quotes
-
There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.
-
Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.
-
Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.
-
To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.
-
I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: 'What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.'
-
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.
-
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.
-
Jesters do often prove prophets.
-
A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.
-
Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.
-
A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.
-
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.
-
If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
-
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
-
The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.
-
Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.
-
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
-
When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.
-
Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.
-
Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.
-
The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
-
Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
-
The post of honour is a private station.
-
We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.