Quotes By 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.

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.

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

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

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.

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.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.

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.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

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

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.

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.

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.

Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

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.

The post of honour is a private station.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.