JAJoseph Addison

209 collected words

Joseph Addison

Life dates: 1672 AD — 1719 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

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Quotations and sayings

01c. 1695 AD

The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment.

Joseph Addison / quote

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02c. 1695 AD

Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.

Joseph Addison / quote

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03c. 1695 AD

Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species with a design to be each other's mutual comfort and entertainment have, in that action, bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties and perfections, to the end of their lives.

Joseph Addison / quote

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04c. 1695 AD

It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of, before that which would fall to them by such a division.

Joseph Addison / quote

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05c. 1695 AD

True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable.

Joseph Addison / quote

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06c. 1695 AD

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of; it heightens all the virtues which it accompanies; like the shades in paintings, it raises and rounds every figure, and makes the colors more beautiful, though not so glaring as they would be without.

Joseph Addison / quote

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07c. 1695 AD

The first of all virtues is innocence; the next is modesty. If we banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the virtue that is in it.

Joseph Addison / quote

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08c. 1695 AD

Of all hardness of heart there is none so inexcusable as that of parents toward their children. An obstinate, inflexible, unforgiving temper is odious upon all occasions; but here it is unnatural.

Joseph Addison / quote

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09c. 1695 AD

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.

Joseph Addison / quote

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10c. 1695 AD

Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world and ignorance of mankind.

Joseph Addison / quote

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11c. 1695 AD

There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society.

Joseph Addison / quote

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12c. 1695 AD

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

Joseph Addison / quote

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13c. 1695 AD

Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it.

Joseph Addison / quote

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14c. 1695 AD

Certain it is that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as that of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.

Joseph Addison / quote

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15c. 1695 AD

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health, and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

Joseph Addison / quote

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16c. 1695 AD

Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatsoever.

Joseph Addison / quote

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17c. 1695 AD

Devotion, when it does not lie under the check of reason, is apt to degenerate into enthusiasm (fanaticism).

Joseph Addison / quote

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18c. 1695 AD

Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other.

Joseph Addison / quote

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19c. 1695 AD

Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant, accommodates itself to the meanest capacities, silences the loud and clamorous, and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible.

Joseph Addison / quote

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20c. 1695 AD

Good-breeding shows itself most where to an ordinary eye it appears least.

Joseph Addison / quote

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21c. 1695 AD

Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.

Joseph Addison / quote

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22c. 1695 AD

Goodman Fact is allowed by everybody to be a plain-spoken person, and a man of very few words; tropes and figures are his aversion.

Joseph Addison / quote

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23c. 1695 AD

If any false step be made in the more momentous concerns of life, the whole scheme of ambitious designs is broken.

Joseph Addison / quote

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24c. 1695 AD

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

Joseph Addison / quote

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