Joseph Addison
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.
There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.
Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.
Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.
With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.
Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.
The post of honour is a private station.
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.
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.
That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
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.'
The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.
There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.
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.
The woman that deliberates is lost.
The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.
The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
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 not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.
Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.
The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.
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.
When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.
He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.
Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.
Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.
We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.
Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.
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.
Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
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.
No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another. Thank you.Collection: Appreciation
Artificial intelligence will never be a match for natural stupidity.Collection: Stupid
The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.Collection: Flattery
Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.Collection: Beauty
Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands.Collection: Heart
We are growing serious, and, let me tell you, that's the very next step to being dull.Collection: Stupid
Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.Collection: Knowledge
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.Collection: Motivational
If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend.Collection: Success
The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship.Collection: Friendship
They were a people so primitive they did not know how to get money, except by working for it.Collection: Funny
I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality.Collection: Morality
Government mitigates the inequality of power, and makes an innocent man, though of the lowest rank, a match for the mightiest of his fellow-subjects.Collection: Men
The moral perfections of the Deity, the more attentively, we consider, the more perfectly still shall we know them.Collection: God
It is easier for an artful Man, who is not in Love, to persuade his Mistress he has a Passion for her, and to succeed in his Pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest Violence. True Love hath ten thousand Griefs, Impatiencies and Resentments, that render a Man unamiable in the Eyes of the Person whose Affection he sollicits.Collection: Love