Joseph Addison quotes

Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, and playwright, famous for co-founding The Spectator. His works helped shape English literature and journalism in the early 18th century. He is remembered for his wit, elegant prose, and important contributions to social and literary criticism. Here are 308 of his quotes:

The meaning of true friendship is that it doubles joy and divides suffering in half. View quote
Joseph Addison
If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius. View quote
Joseph Addison
Knowledge is that which, next to virtue, truly raises one person above another. View quote
Joseph Addison
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. View quote
Joseph Addison
Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week. View quote
Joseph Addison
I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality. View quote
Joseph Addison
Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue. View quote
Joseph Addison
We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us. View quote
Joseph Addison
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person. View quote
Joseph Addison
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. View quote
Joseph Addison
Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. (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. View quote
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. View quote
Joseph Addison
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. View quote
Joseph Addison
If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world. View quote
Joseph Addison
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station. View quote
Joseph Addison
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." View quote
Joseph Addison
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. View quote
Joseph Addison
Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense. View quote
Joseph Addison
There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice. View quote
Joseph Addison
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world. (Joseph Addison)
Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity. View quote
Joseph Addison
It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others. View quote
Joseph Addison
Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness. View quote
Joseph Addison
Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable. View quote
Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison - Image
Occupation: English Essayist
Born: May 1, 1672
Died: June 17, 1719
Quotes count: 308
Wikipedia: Joseph Addison

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