Joseph Addison (1672–1719): English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. The library holds 151 quotes by Joseph Addison, drawn from Cato, The Campaign, Ode and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
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.
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.
In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou ‘rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,
Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
A few persons of an odious and despised country could not have filled the world with believers, had they not shown undoubted credentials from the divine person who sent them on such a message.
Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes the man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.
God discovers the martyr and confessor without the trial of flames and tortures, and will hereafter entitle many to the reward of actions which they had never the opportunity of performing.
Our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our nearer acquaintance with him; and we seldom hear of a celebrated person without a catalogue of some notorious weaknesses and infirmities.
The true art of being agreeable is to appear well pleased with all the company, and rather to seem well entertained with them than to bring entertainment to them.
They who have the true taste of conversation enjoy themselves in a communication of each other’s excellences, and not in a triumph over their imperfections.
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 his friends and foes.
Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.
However consonant to reason his precepts appeared, nothing could have tempted men to acknowledge him as their God and Saviour but their being firmly persuaded of the miracles he wrought.
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.
A multitude of eyes will narrowly inspect every part of an eminent man, consider him nicely in all views, and not be a little pleased when they have taken him in the worst and most disadvantageous lights.
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.
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.