Joseph Addison Quotations

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

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.

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.

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

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

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.

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

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

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

Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!

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.

To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.

A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.

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.

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

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.

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.

Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

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

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

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

Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.

Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.

Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

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.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.

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.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

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.

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.

To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.

The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

What pity is it That we can die, but once to serve our country.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

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.

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.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

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

The post of honour is a private station.

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

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.

Justice is an unassailable fortress, built on the brow of a mountain which cannot be overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor demolished by the force of armies.

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.'

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life... Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

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.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.

The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.

Through all eternity to thee, a joyful song I'll raise; for oh! Eternity's too short to utter all thy praise.

Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves

Learning is pedantry, wit, impertinence, virtue itself looked like weakness, and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice.

Sir Roger told them, with the air of a man who would not give his judgement rashly, that much might be said on both sides.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have here below.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below.

Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.

I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species

Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.

We travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it

Knowledge is that which, next to virtue, truly raises one person above another.

I remember when our whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, there was an impudent mountebank who sold pills which (as he told the country people) were very good against an earthquake.

Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness and of our miseries. A marriage of love is pleasant, of interest, easy, and where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and,

Method is not less requisite in conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise

Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy that are preceded by a long Courtship.

We are growing serious, and let me tell you, that's the very next step to being dull

We are growing serious, and let me tell you, that's the next step to being dull.