Home / Authors / Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison Quotes

Essayist

Joseph Addison, born on May 1, 1672, and died on June 17, 1719, was an influential English essayist, dramatist, and poet. He is known for his elegant prose style and his co-authorship of the magazine 'The Spectator' with Richard Steele.

Filter quotes by topic

All Men Mind Ifs World Virtue May Soul Literature Giving Persons Mankind Life Art Kind Should Eye Lying Heart Passion Thinking

Famous Joseph Addison Quotes

“An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage, in particular, is a kind of counter apotheosis, as a deification inverted. When a man becomes familiar with his goddess she quickly sinks into a woman.”

Men Kind May Causes Particular Familiar Idols Goddess Familiarity Inverted Apotheosis

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“Novelty serves us for a kind of refreshment, and takes off from that satiety we are apt to complain of in our usual and ordinary entertainments.”

Kind Ordinary Entertainment Complaining Usual Novelty Refreshments Satiety

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“Courage that grows from constitution very often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it, and when it is only a kind of instinct in the Soul breaks out on all occasions without judgment or discretion. That courage which proceeds from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us, acts always in a uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason.”

Men Kind Made Soul Reason Grows Break Duty Judgment Constitution Instinct Occasions Uniforms Discretion Break Out Forsake Offending All Occasions

Book:The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq

Source: The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq

“The first race of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rule of art.”

People Firsts Kind Art Used Race Mankind Ordinary Argument Logic Ordinary People Disputes

Book:The Works of Joseph Addison: The Spectator

Source: The Works of Joseph Addison: The Spectator

“Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.”

Kind Asks Greater Atheism Infinite Articles Creeds Supposing

Book:Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste

Source: Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste

“Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to their mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the nations of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another and be united together by their common interest.”

Source: The Works of Joseph Addison: The Spectator, no. 1-314

“The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul, rise in the pursuit.”

Men Kind Soul Life Is Desire Passion Party Emotion Pursuit Beloved Sincere Discretion Courtship

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.”

Wells Kind May Whole Hands Eye Able Views Objects Succeed Aim Distance Sticks Selfish Command Horizon Cunning Discretion

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“The productions of a great genius, with many lapses and inadvertences, are infinitely preferable to the works of an inferior kind of author which are scrupulously exact, and conformable to all the rules of correct writing.”

Writing Kind Genius Productions Inferiors Lapses

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“There is a kind of grandeur and respect which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavor to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the soul of man, might, methinks, receive a very happy turn; and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage, as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet.”

Source: The spectator

“Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties, and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul.”

Mind Kind Soul Lasts Causes Laughter Faculty Dissolution

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“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.”

Mind Kind Moments Literature Break Clouds Steady Perpetual Flash Serenity Lightning Gloom Daylight Cheerfulness Glitter Break Through Mirth Clouds And Stars

Author:Joseph Addison

“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.”

Writing Kind Literature Humour All Kinds Ambitious

Book:The Works: In Six Volumes

Source: The Works: In Six Volumes

“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.”

Firsts Kind Literature Creatures Hunger Lust Violent Preserves Latter Appetite Perpetual

Book:The Spectator: With Notes, and a General Index

Source: The Spectator: With Notes, and a General Index

“Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as 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.”

“There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.”

Kind Greatness Defense Obscurity Reproach Censure

Author:Joseph Addison

“There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning.”

Kind Has Beens Age Names Practice Wit Jingles Punning

Book:The Spectator: With Notes, and a General Index

Source: The Spectator: With Notes, and a General Index

“Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter.”

“Among the several kinds of beauty, the eye takes most delight in colors.”

Kind Eye Color Delight Rainbow

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“Authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a voluminous writer.”

Men Kind Sometimes Kindness Ought Reader Dull Severe Allowance Dullness Nodding

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“I... recommend to every one of my Readers, the keeping a Journal of their Lives for one Week, and setting down punctually their whole Series of Employments during that Space of Time. This kind of Self-Examination would give them a true State of themselves, and incline them to consider seriously what they are about. One Day would rectifie the Omissions of another, and make a Man weigh all those indifferent Actions, which, though they are easily forgotten, must certainly be accounted for.”

Source: The works of ... Joseph Addison, collected by mr. Tickell

“There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word Good-Breeding.”

World Kind Has Beens Reason Humanity Mankind Bears Conversation Appearance Artificial Breeding Good Nature Good Breeding

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator