Joseph Addison
Who does not more admire Cicero as an author than as a consul of Rome?Collection: Rome
There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society.Collection: Men
Blesses his stars and thinks it luxury.Collection: Stars
To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge,--carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man.Collection: Ambition
Sir Francis Bacon observed that a well-written book, compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses' serpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured those of the Egyptians.Collection: Book
Must one rash word, the infirmity of age, throw down the merit of my better years?Collection: Years
Devotion, when it does not lie under the check of reason, is apt to degenerate into enthusiasm.Collection: Lying
Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.Collection: Selfish
The most exquisite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning; and they are those which a sour undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence.Collection: Men
A perfect tragedy is the noblest production of human nature.Collection: Perfect
'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, and makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile... 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, and hold in balance each contending state, To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, and answer her afflicted neighbours' prayer... Soon as her fleets appear their terrors cease.Collection: Kings
The Fear of Death often proves Mortal.Collection: Death
An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.Collection: Men
Mere bashfulness without merit is awkward; and merit without modesty, insolent. But modest merit has a double claim to acceptance, and generally meets with as many patrons as beholders.Collection: Acceptance
Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood.Collection: Writing
If men, who in their hearts are friends to a government, forbear giving it their utmost assistance against its enemies, they put it in the power of a few desperate men to ruin the welfare of those who are much superior to them in strength, number, and interest.Collection: Heart
Nations with nations mix'd confus'dly die, and lost in one promiscuous carnage lie.Collection: War
Good-breeding shows itself most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least.Collection: Eye
There is sometimes a greater judgement shewn in deviating from the rules of art, than in adhering to them; and?there ismore beauty inthe works of a great genius who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them.Collection: Art
Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.Collection: Evil
The moderns cannot reach their beauties, but can avoid their imperfections.Collection: Imperfection
Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species.Collection: World
The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure.Collection: Beautiful
Better to die ten thousand deaths, Than wound my honour.Collection: Death
When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.Collection: Years
Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.Collection: Graduation
Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's computation, make at least the third part of sensible men of the British nation; and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means, it lies in the power of every fine woman, to secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service.Collection: Husband
When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions.Collection: Character
Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.Collection: Attitude
Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.Collection: Wine
There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.Collection: Country
Simonides, a poet famous in his generation, is, I think, author of the oldest satire that is now extant, and, as some say, of the first that was ever written.Collection: Thinking
No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning.Collection: Book
The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul, rise in the pursuit.Collection: Party
But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them.Collection: Giving
I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.Collection: Optimism
It is of unspeakable advantage to possess our minds with an habitual good intention, and to aim all our thoughts, words, and actions at some laudable end.Collection: Mind
When I read the rules of criticism, I immediately inquire after the works of the author who has written them, and by that means discover what it is he likes in a composition.Collection: Mean
Nothing makes men sharper than want.Collection: Men
I have often reflected within myself on this unaccountable humor in womankind of being smitten with everything that is showy and superficial, and on the numberless evils that befall the sex from this light fantastical disposition.Collection: Sex
I believe that everyone, some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters; in which case the invention prompts so readily that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the composition of another.Collection: Dream
A statue lies hid in a block of marble, and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone; the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero,--the wise, the good, or the great man,--very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light.Collection: Education
There is not a more melancholy object than a man who has his head turned with religious enthusiasm.Collection: Religious
Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.Collection: Opposites
A cheerful temper, joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured.Collection: Cheerful
Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments.Collection: Distance
Heaven is not to be looked upon only as the reward, but the natural effect, of a religious life.Collection: Religious