Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison

37 quotes

Joseph Addison is a British writer and politician whose words have traveled far beyond their original audience. Beyond his play Cato, a Tragedy, Joseph Addison proved equally skilled at capturing ideas in a sentence or two. With 51 quotes in our library, Joseph Addison is among the most well-represented voices here, with thoughts on Nature, Great, Life, Hope, and Happiness. A line that stays with you: "Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body."

“The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.”

— Joseph Addison

Nature

All Quotes by Joseph Addison

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Wisdom

“The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.”

— Joseph Addison

Death

“A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.”

— Joseph Addison

Great

“A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.”

— Joseph Addison

Truth

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Life

“There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.”

— Joseph Addison

Business

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Hope

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Age

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Nature

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Imagination

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Age

“The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.”

— Joseph Addison

Friendship

“To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.”

— Joseph Addison

Faith

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Change

“There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.”

— Joseph Addison

Nature

“There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.”

— Joseph Addison

Beauty

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Happiness

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Experience

“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.”

— Joseph Addison

Great

“A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.”

— Joseph Addison

Wedding