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Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison Quotes

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Famous Joseph Addison Quotes

“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.”

MenWantPainLiteratureLearningReaderGeniusOrganizationMethodPearlsIrregularity
Book:Essays Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste
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“Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below. Music can noble hints impart, Engender fury, kindle love; 40 With unsuspected eloquence can move, And manage all the man with secret art. When Orpheus strikes the trembling lyre The streams stand still, the stones admire; The listening savages advance, The world and lamb around him trip The bears in aukward measures leap, And tigers mingle in the dance The moving woods attended as he played And Rhodope was left without a shade.”

KnowsMenWorldArtStillsMovingLeftHeavenSecretMusicHe ManListeningBearsStonesWoodsNobleStrikesAdmireManageMortalsStreamsLeapShadeSavagesTigersFuryHintsEloquenceLambsTremblingImpartKindlesOrpheus
Author:Joseph Addison
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“When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions.”

MenMadeCharacterActionPersonalityCircumstancesRidiculousGrainCompositionDoveSerpentDiscredit
Book:Works, including the whole contents of Bp. Hurd's edition: withletters and other pieces not found in any previous collection; and Macaulay's essay on his life and works
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“An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.”

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Book:Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste
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“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.”

IfsMenWorldShouldMindFirstsHeartCareLastsNextGreaterHonestHonestySatisfactionInterfereNeglectedApplauseReproachCensure
Author:Joseph Addison
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“The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well written play, where the principal persons still act in character, whatever the fate in which they undergo.”

MenWellsPersonsStillsEndsPlayCharacterLife IsDestinyFateWrittenPrincipalWell WrittenWinding Up
Book:The Spectator, in Miniature: Being the Principal Religious, Moral, Humourous, Satirical and Critical Essays, in that Publication Compressed Into Two Volumes
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“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. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.”

MenMayMomentsEvilCausesSecretStepsEffectsEventsDivinePeriodsConsequenceEvery ManChainsFormerUnexpectedPresent MomentLinksTransitionIncidentsForesightSagacity
Author:Joseph Addison
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“Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.”

MenGivingHomeGovernmentEducationEnemyKnowledgeVirtueGraceCrimeGeniusSolitudeSlaveVicesGuidesMemorableReasoningCompanionMisfortunesDepressingSavagesGraduationSplendidIntroductionSolaceDespotismOrnaments
Author:Joseph Addison
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“Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honors, then to retire.”

MenLifeEndsSeemsAgeWishBusinessHonorPeriodsRetiringMinorsEstatesBe A ManShortnessShortness Of Life
Book:The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...
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“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?”

MenLifePersonsMadeIdeasDifferentTogetherLife IsGamesBlackHoursLaughingWonderfulFiguresConversationLaughterRedSpeciesComplainingPassingPassingsCardsSpotsPhrasesPacksLife Is ShortShort LifeDividingShuffling
Author:Joseph Addison
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“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.”

MenWayReasonPhilosophyWisdomUnderstandingSilenceLibertyDoubtWonderfulDrawsCapacityArgumentGoldDumbLoudInstantConvinceLengthStatesmenInvincibleAccommodatePhilipAthensObstinateOratorsCringeMintAntagonistScruples
Author:Joseph Addison
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“It must be so,-Plato, thou reasonest well! Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us; 'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!”

MenWellsSoulDesireFallHeavenSecretHorrorDestructionEternityLongingImmortalityDivinityDreadInwardPlatoShrinksHereafter
Author:Joseph Addison
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“If gratitude, when exerted towards another, naturally produces a very pleasing sensation in the mind of a grateful man, it exalts the soul into rapture when it is employed on this great object of gratitude to the beneficent Being who has given us everything we already possess, and from whom we expect everything we yet hope for.”

IfsMenMindSoulGivenObjectsProduceGratitudeGratefulSensationsThank YouEmployedRapture
Book:The Spectator: with a biographical and critical preface, and explanatory notes
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