Joseph Addison quotes - page 12

There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former. (Joseph Addison)
The Gods in bounty work up storms about us, that give mankind occasion to exert their hidden strength, and throw our into practice virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calms of life. View quote
Joseph Addison
A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint, will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. 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 cringes over the most obstinate and inflexible. Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens confounded their statesmen struck their orators dumb and at length argued them out of all their liberties. View quote
Joseph Addison
Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency. View quote
Joseph Addison
I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike. View quote
Joseph Addison
It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age. View quote
Joseph Addison
Our friends don't see our faults, or conceal them, or soften them. View quote
Joseph Addison
The religious man fears, the man of honor scorns, to do an ill action. View quote
Joseph Addison
But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind. View quote
Joseph Addison
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. View quote
Joseph Addison
Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible. (Joseph Addison)
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. View quote
Joseph Addison
A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature. View quote
Joseph Addison
It was a saying of an ancient philosopher, which I find some of our writers have ascribed to Queen Elizabeth, who perhaps might have taken occasion to repeat it, that a good face is a letter of recommendation. View quote
Joseph Addison
Faith is kept alive in us, and gathers strength, more from practice than from speculation. View quote
Joseph Addison
As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men. View quote
Joseph Addison
I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up. View quote
Joseph Addison
It must be so, Plato, thou reason'st well. View quote
Joseph Addison
Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated. View quote
Joseph Addison
There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than the instinct of animals, which thus rise above reason, and yet fall infinitely short of it. View quote
Joseph Addison
There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. (Joseph Addison)
Man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart, and next to escape the censures of the world. If the last interfere with the first it should be entirely neglected. But if not, there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind than to see its own approbation seconded by the applause of the public. View quote
Joseph Addison
In my Lucia's absence Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear, And grief, and rage and love rise up at once, And with variety of pain distract me. View quote
Joseph Addison
Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep the fire out of the one, and the frost out of the other. View quote
Joseph Addison
It is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards with no conversation but what is made up of a few game-phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots arranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short. View quote
Joseph Addison