Joseph Addison Quotes
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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.
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The post of honour is a private station.
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The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.
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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.'
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Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.
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Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.
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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.
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A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.
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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.
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Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
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Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.
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A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.
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Jesters do often prove prophets.
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The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.
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We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.
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Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
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Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.
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If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.
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To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.
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The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
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What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.
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Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
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There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
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A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.