Words matter. These are the best Joseph Addison Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.
Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.
Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.
A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.
To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.
To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.
Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.
Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.
Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.
The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.
Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.
What pity is it That we can die, but once to serve our country.
Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.
Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.
Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.
If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.
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.
Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.
To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.
Jesters do often prove prophets.
Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.
The post of honour is a private station.
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.
Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.
Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.
A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.
Justice is an unassailable fortress, built on the brow of a mountain which cannot be overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor demolished by the force of armies.
To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.
There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.
Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.
Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
The woman that deliberates is lost.
I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: ‘What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.’
One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.
Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin!
A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.
Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.
If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.
The utmost extent of man’s knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.
Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.
There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.
