Joseph Addison Quotes

Should the whole frame of nature round him break,In ruin and confusion hurled,He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack,And stand secure amidst a falling world.
Joseph Addison
Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains losses and disappointments but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.
Joseph Addison
Irresolution on the schemes of life I which offer themselves to our choice and inconstancy in pursuing them are the greatest causes of all unhappiness.
Joseph Addison
If you wish success in life make perseverance your bosom friend.
Joseph Addison
We are growing serious and let me tell you that's a very next step to being dull.
Joseph Addison
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Joseph Addison
And pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform. Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
Joseph Addison
A day an hour of virtuous liberty is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
Joseph Addison
All of heaven we have below.
Joseph Addison
Music the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have below.
Joseph Addison
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Joseph Addison
And pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform. Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
Joseph Addison
A day an hour of virtuous liberty is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
Joseph Addison
If you wish success in life make perseverance your bosom friend.
Joseph Addison
All of heaven we have below.
Joseph Addison
Music the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have below.
Joseph Addison
As vivacity is the gift of women gravity is that of men.
Joseph Addison
What sunshine is to flowers smiles are to humanity. They are but trifles to be sure but scattered along life's pathway the good they do is inconceivable.
Joseph Addison
The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do something to love and something to hope for.
Joseph Addison
Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity.
Joseph Addison
There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.
Joseph Addison
Young men soon give and soon forget affronts Old age is slow in both.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do something to love and something to hope for.
Joseph Addison
True happiness is of a retired nature and an enemy to pomp and noise it arises in the first place from the enjoyment of one's self and in the next from the friendship and conversations of a few select companions.
Joseph Addison
A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants and how much more unhappy he might be than he really is.
Joseph Addison
If I can in any way contribute to the Diversion or Improvement of the Country in which I live I shall leave it when I am summoned out of it with the secret Satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain.
Joseph Addison
The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power wise by his wisdom happy by his happiness.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
A man should always consider ... how much more unhappy he might be than he is.
Joseph Addison
Looking for Silver Linings Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains losses and disappointments.
Joseph Addison
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery by doubling our joy and dividing our grief.
Joseph Addison
The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship.
Joseph Addison
Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man ... courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.
Joseph Addison
Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.
Joseph Addison
Colors speak all languages.
Joseph Addison
Charity is the perfection and ornament of religion.
Joseph Addison
Arguments out of a petty mouth are unanswerable.
Joseph Addison
Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.
Joseph Addison
A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.
Joseph Addison
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.
Joseph Addison
Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in proper figures.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
... when I see kings lying by those who deposed them,... or holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind.
Joseph Addison
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
There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
Joseph Addison
The ways of heaven are dark and intricate;Puzzled in mazes, and perplext with errors.
Joseph Addison
There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.
Joseph Addison
Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.
Joseph Addison
If you wish success in life, make perseverance you bosom friend, experience your wise councellor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would no end of them."- On the Right Use of Time
Joseph Addison