Quotes by Joseph Addison
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.
One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.
Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.
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.
Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!
That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.
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.
If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling.
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.
Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.
Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.
Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.
Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.
A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves a constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions that can possibly befall us.
Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.
Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.
One's religion is whatever he is most interested in, and yours is Success.
Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.
Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.
With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.
Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.
