Joseph Addison
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.Collection: Gardening
The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.Collection: Friendship
A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.Collection: Wedding
Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.Collection: Music
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.Collection: Sympathy
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.Collection: Good
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.Collection: Fitness
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.Collection: Patience
If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.Collection: Hope
To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.Collection: Faith
A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Change
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Nature
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.Collection: Wisdom
Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.Collection: Health
The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.Collection: Knowledge
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.Collection: Happiness
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.Collection: Friendship
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.Collection: Learning
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.Collection: Education
Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.Collection: Courage
There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.Collection: Beauty
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.Collection: Imagination
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.Collection: Legal
Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.
Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.
Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.
Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.
Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.
What pity is it That we can die, but once to serve our country.
A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.
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.
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.
A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.
Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!
Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
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!
There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
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.
Jesters do often prove prophets.
The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life... Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.
Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
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.
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
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.
Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.