A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Dress
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.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Consequences, Foresight
Every man is ready to give in a long catalogue of those virtues and good qualities he expects to find in the person of a friend; but very few of us are careful to cultivate them in ourselves.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Virtue
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Humility, Vanity
Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Music
When a man has been guilty of any vice of folly, the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Advice
A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Marriage, Weddings
Singularity is laudable, when in contradiction to a multitude, it adheres to the dictates of morality and honor. In concerns of this kind it is to be looked upon as heroic bravery, in which a man leaves the species only as he soars above it.
—Joseph Addison
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Honor
It is ridiculous for any man to criticize the works of another if he has not distinguished himself by his own performances.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Criticism
Nothing lies on our hands with such uneasiness as time. Wretched and thoughtless creatures! In the only place where covetousness were a virtue we turn prodigals.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Time
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 of his weaknesses and infirmities.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Fame
Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable. It smoothes distinction, sweetens conversation, and makes every one in the company pleased with himself. It produces good nature and mutual benevolence, encourages the timorous, soothes the turbulent, humanizes the fierce, and distinguishes a society of civilized persons from a confusion of savages.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Manners
Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.—It shows virtue in the fairest light; takes off, in some measure, from the deformity of vice; and makes even folly and impertinence supportable.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Goodness, Attitude
What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.
—Joseph Addison
The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Friendship, Enjoyment
Content has a kindly influence on the soul of man, in respect of every being to whom he stands related. It extinguishes all murmuring, repining, and ingratitude toward that Being who has allotted us our part to act in the world. It destroys all inordinate ambition; gives sweetness to the conversation, and serenity to all the thoughts; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire of them.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Contentment
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.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Taste
It has been said in praise of some men, that they could talk whole hours together upon anything; but it must be owned to the honor of the other sex, that there are many among them who can talk whole hours together upon nothing.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Talking
Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies; and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us we see the worst side of ourselves.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Enemies
Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Music
True religion and virtue give a cheerful and happy turn to the mind; admit of all true pleasures, and even procure for us the highest.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Religion
Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man!
—Joseph Addison
The soul, considered with its Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity without a possibility of touching it; and can there be a thought so transporting as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to Him, who is not only the standard of perfection, but of happiness?
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Soul
As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Men & Women, Men and Women, Men, Women
I am wonderfully delighted to see a body of men thriving in their own fortunes, and at the same time promoting the public stock; or, in other words, raising estates for their own families by bringing into their country whatever is wanting, and carrying out of it whatever is superfluous.
—Joseph Addison
Every one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, in which, whilst he lived, his friends were too profuse and his enemies too sparing.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Praise
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world; and if, in the present life, his happiness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will arise in the next from the gratification of them.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Contentment
A money-lender. He serves you in the present tense; he lends you in the conditional mood; keeps you in the subjunctive; and ruins you in the future!
—Joseph Addison
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.
—Joseph Addison
Topics: Organization
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Samuel Johnson British Essayist
- A. C. Benson English Essayist
- Arthur Helps British Essayist, Historian
- William Hazlitt English Essayist
- Thomas de Quincey English Essayist, Critic
- John Dryden English Poet
- Miguel de Unamuno Spanish Philosopher, Writer
- William Wycherley English Dramatist
- G. K. Chesterton English Journalist
- Pamela Hansford Johnson English Novelist
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