Joseph Addison Quotes

Wit is the fetching of congruity out of incongruity.

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world: if the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of the public.

Pedantry in learning is like hypocrisy inn religion--a form of knowledge without the power of it.

Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.

If I can in any way contribute to the Diversion or Improvement of the Country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret Satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.

I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.

To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.

Colors speak all languages.

Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.

A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.

There is not a more melancholy object than a man who has his head turned with religious enthusiasm.

The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.

We make provisions for this life as if it were never to have an end, and for the other life as though it were never to have a beginning.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

Let freedom never perish in your hands.

It is easier for an artful Man, who is not in Love, to persuade his Mistress he has a Passion for her, and to succeed in his Pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest Violence. True Love hath ten thousand Griefs, Impatiencies and Resentments, that render a Man unamiable in the Eyes of the Person whose Affection he sollicits.

That fine part of our construction, the eye, seems as much the receptacle and seat of our passions as the mind itself; and at least it is the outward portal to introduce them to the house within, or rather the common thoroughfare to let our affections pass in and out.

Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend.

An indiscreet man is more hurtful than an ill-natured one; for as the latter will only attack his enemies, and those he wishes ill to, the other injures indifferently both friends and foes.

Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable.

Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies; and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us, we see the worst side of ourselves.

Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.

Poverty palls the most generous spirits; it cows industry, and casts resolution itself into despair.

If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.

But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

One would fancy that the zealots in atheism would be exempt from the single fault which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervor of religion. But so it is, that irreligion is propagated with as much fierceness and contention, wrath and indignation, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it.

Music, when thus applied, raises noble hints in the mind of the hearer, and fills it with great conceptions. It strengthens devotion, and advances praise into rapture.

A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts

A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.

I would have every zealous man examine his heart thoroughly, and I believe he will often find that what be calls a zeal for his religion is either pride, interest, or ill-repute.

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

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.

I am wonderfully pleased when I meet with any passage in an old Greek or Latin author, that is not blown upon, and which I have never met with in any quotation.

The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasures.

It is odd to consider the connection between despotism and barbarity, and how the making one person more than man makes the rest less.

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our own souls, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such inexhaustible sources of perfection. We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart to conceive the glory that will be always in reserve for it.

Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

Beauty commonly produces love, but cleanliness preserves it. Age itself is not unamiable while it is preserved clean and unsullied; like a piece of metal constantly kept smooth and bright, we look on it with more pleasure than on a new vessel cankered with rust.

Honor's a fine imaginary notion, that draws in raw and unexperienced men to real mischiefs.

An opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratify the senses and keep up an indolent attention in the audience.

T is the Divinity that stirs within us.