Joseph Addison
A man governs himself by the dictates of virtue and good sense, who acts without zeal or passion in points that are of no consequence; but when the whole community is shaken, and the safety of the public endangered, the appearance of a philosophical or an affected indolence must arise either from stupidity or perfidiousness.Collection: Philosophical
This party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments.Collection: Party
Novelty serves us for a kind of refreshment, and takes off from that satiety we are apt to complain of in our usual and ordinary entertainments.Collection: Entertainment
Love is a second life.Collection: Love
Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.Collection: Heart
We cannot be guilty of a greater act of uncharitableness, than to interpret the afflictions which befall our neighbors as punishments and judgments.Collection: Adversity
Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.Collection: Modesty
Health and happiness give rise to each other.Collection: Giving
Yet then from all my grief, O Lord, Thy mercy set me free, Whilst in the confidence of pray'r My soul took hold on thee.Collection: Prayer
Physic, for the most part, is nothing else but the substitute of exercise and temperance.Collection: Health
There is not a more pleasante exercise of the mind than gratitude.Collection: Thank You
Life is not long enough for a coquette to play all her tricks in.Collection: Play
As Vivacity is the Gift of Women, Gravity is that of Men.Collection: Women
Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter.Collection: Thank You
An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.Collection: Honesty
I have but nine-pence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds.Collection: Speech
From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life; where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.Collection: Life
The statue lies hid in a block of marble; and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish.Collection: Art
A man whose extraordinary reputation thus lifts him up to the notice and observation of mankind, draws a multitude of eyes upon him, that will narrowly inspect every part of him.Collection: Eye
See in what peace a Christian can die.Collection: Death
Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency, especially when it regards religion or party. In either of these cases, though a man perhaps does but his duty in changing his side, he not only makes himself hated by those he left, but is seldom heartily esteemed by those he comes over to.Collection: Real
It is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards with no conversation but what is made up of a few game-phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots arranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short?Collection: Life
A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world: if the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of the public.Collection: Honesty
Music, among those who were styled the chosen people, was a religious art.Collection: Music
One would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged, the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started into discourse; but, instead of this we find that conversation is never so much straightened and confined, as in numerous assemblies.Collection: Thinking
A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.Collection: Heart
Hunting is not a proper employment for a thinking man.Collection: Men
The man who will live above his present circumstances, is in great danger of soon living beneath them; or as the Italian proverb says, "The man that lives by hope, will die by despair.Collection: Italian
In private conversation between intimate friends, the wisest men very often talk like the weakest : for indeed the talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.Collection: Friends
Let freedom never perish in your hands.Collection: Freedom
A man improves more by reading the story of a person eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality.Collection: Reading
Were a man's sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life, it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him than from those evils which had really befallen him.Collection: Fear
There is nothing which strengthens faith more than the observance of morality.Collection: Morality
Complaisance, though in itself it be scarce reckoned in the number of moral virtues, is that which gives a lustre to every talent a man can be possessed of. It was Plato's advice to an unpolished writer that he should sacrifice to the graces. In the same manner I would advise every man of learning, who would not appear in the world a mere scholar or philosopher, to make himself master of the social virtue which I have here mentioned.Collection: Plato
What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.Collection: Men
Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.Collection: Moon
Encourage innocent amusement.Collection: Amusement
There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.Collection: Greatness
When a woman comes to her class, she does not employ her time in making herself look more advantageously what she really is, but endeavours to be as much another creature as she possibly can. Whether this happens because they stay so long and attend their work so diligently that they forget the faces and persons, which they first sat down with, or whatever it is, they seldom rise from the toilet the same woman they appeared when they began to dressCollection: Maturity
All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butterCollection: Morning
On you, my lord, with anxious fear I wait, and from your judgment must expect my fate.Collection: Fate
How is it possible for those who are men of honor in their persons, thus to become notorious liars in their partyCollection: Liars
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.Collection: Editing
If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.Collection: Men
Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: the first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for mine enemies.Collection: Drinking
An evil intention perverts the best actions, and makes them sins.Collection: Evil
One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.Collection: Powerful