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Joseph Addison Quotes - Page 18

All Quotes Affection Age Ambition Appearance Art Atheism Beauty Bravery Character Children Community Compassion Contentment Country Courage Criticism Critics Death Design Desire Destiny Earth Education Enthusiasm Eternity Evil Exercise Fame Fate Flattery Friends Friendship Funny Genius Giving Glory God Gold Gratitude Greatness Grief Happiness Health Heart Heaven Honesty Honor Hope Human Nature Humanity Humility Husband Imagination Imperfection Innocence Inspirational Inspiring Judgment Justice Kindness Knowledge Laughter Liberty Life Life And Death Literature Losing Love Lying Mankind Marriage Modesty Morality Mountain Music Nature Opportunity Pain Passion Perfection Philosophy Plato Praise Prejudice Pride Prosperity Quality Reading Religion Running Safety Satire Science Serenity Silence Sorrow Soul Success Suffering Sunshine Talent Time Tragedy Understanding Violence Virtue War Weakness Wine Wisdom Wit Work Writing

A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms.

A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms.

Beautiful, Sex, Women

Joseph Addison (2017). “Delphi Complete Works of Joseph Addison (Illustrated)”, p.3311, Delphi Classics

I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.

Thinking, Imagination, Sacred

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...”, p.353

Should a writer single out and point his raillery at particular persons, or satirize the miserable, he might be sure of pleasing a great part of his readers, but must be a very ill man if he could please himself.

Men, Might, Miserable

When a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.

Fall, Men, Guilt

Joseph Addison (1858). “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”, p.34

Virgil has very finely touched upon the female passion for dress and shows, in the character of Camilla; who though she seems to have shaken off all the other weaknesses of her sex, is still described as a woman in this particular.

Sex, Passion, Character

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.22

Our Grub-street biographers watch for the death of a great man like so many undertakers on purpose to make a penny of him.

Men, Watches, Purpose

Joseph Addison (1761). “The Freeholder: Or Political Essays”, p.209

It is observed by Cicero, that men of the greatest and most shining parts are most actuated by ambition.

Ambition, Men, Shining

Waning moons their settled periods keep, to swell the billows and ferment the deep.

Moon, Periods

Joseph Addison (1811). “The Works of the Right Honorable Joseph Addison”, p.206

Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant.

Understanding, Doubt, Gold

Joseph Addison (1868). “The Works of Joseph Addison: Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition, with Letters and Other Pieces Not Found in Any Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.563

Adulterers, in the first stages of the church, were excommunicated forever, and unqualified all their lives for bearing a part in Christian assemblies, notwithstanding they might seek it with tears, and all the appearances of the most unfeigned repentance.

Christian, Forever, Tears

When I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers lying in ambuscade among the dishes. Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon everything that comes in his way; not the smallest fruit or excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or a mushroom can escape him.

Lying, Fall, Science

Joseph Addison (1827). “A Selection [- Second Selection] from the Paper of Addison: In the Spectator and Guardian, for the Use of Young Persons”, p.236

Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind, than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part of life.

Mean, Soldier, World

1711 In The Spectator, no.1,1Mar.

The Knight in the triumph of his heart made several 6 reflections on thegreatness of the British Nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of Popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that theThames was thenoblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the Seven Wonders of the World; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

Heart, Reflection, Knights

'The Spectator' no. 383, 20 May 1712

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 with its proper enjoyments.

Distance, Tired, Sight

Joseph Addison (2017). “Delphi Complete Works of Joseph Addison (Illustrated)”, p.4174, Delphi Classics

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.

Entertainment, Novelty, Usual

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.474

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.

Men, Space, Omission

Joseph Addison (1804). “The works of ... Joseph Addison, collected by mr. Tickell”, p.271

There are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and perplexities, in an elaborate and well-written piece of nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of school divinity.

School, Profound, Depth

Joseph Addison (1853). “The Works of Joseph Addison: Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition, with Letters and Other Pieces Not Found in Any Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.624

I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of Winter.

Fall, Winter, Roger

'The Spectator' no. 269, 8 January 1712

Fables take off from the severity of instruction, and enforce it at the same time that they conceal it.

Fables, Instruction, Severity

Joseph Addison, Richard Hurd, Henry George Bohn (1854). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison: The Tatler and Spectator [no. 1-160”, p.24

Good Nature, and Evenness of Temper, will give you an easie Companion for Life; Vertue and good Sense, an agreeable Friend; Love and Constancy, a good Wife or Husband. Where we meet one Person with all these Accomplishments, we find an Hundred without any one of them.

Marriage, Husband, Giving

Joseph Addison (1867). “The Works of Joseph Addison: Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition, with Letters and Other Pieces Not Found in Ay Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.22

Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful.

Beautiful, Light, Track

Joseph Addison (1856). “The works of ... Joseph Addison, with notes by R. Hurd”, p.428

Nothing, says Longinus, can be great, the contempt of which is great.

Contempt

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator”

The religious man fears, the man of honor scorns, to do an ill action.

Religious, Men, Honor

Joseph Addison (1761). “The Specator, no. 507-600. The Guardian. The lover. The present state of the war, and the necessity of an augmentation, considered. The Whig-examiner. The Free-holder. Of the Christian religion”, p.253

Whether dark presages of the night proceed from any latent power of the soul during her abstraction, or from any operation of subordinate spirits, has been a dispute.

Dark, Night, Soul

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.

Life, Business, Men

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...”, p.304

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