Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addisonwas an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth1 May 1672
greatness age matter
It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.
facts aversion figures
Facts are plain spoken; hopes and figures are its aversion.
health exercise substitutes
Physic, for the most part, is nothing else but the substitute of exercise and temperance.
beautiful art strong
It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.
mouths argument
Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.
life respect passion
Admiration is a very short lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it still be fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.
respect men cherish
Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them.
morning tea bread
All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter
ignorance self prejudice
Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world, and ignorance of mankind.
play giving vigor
Temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor.
honesty heart men
Man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart, and next to escape the censures of the world. If the last interfere with the first it should be entirely neglected. But if not, there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind than to see its own approbation seconded by the applause of the public.
honesty men giving
An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.
eye men reputation
A man's reputation draws eyes upon him that will narrowly inspect every part of him.
happiness distance lying
Men of warm imaginations and towering thoughts are apt to overlook the goods of fortune which are near them, for something that glitters in the sight at a distance; to neglect solid and substantial happiness for what is showy and superficial; and to contemn that good which lies within their reach, for that which they are not capable of attaining. Hope calculates its schemes for a long and durable life; presses forward to imaginary points of bliss; grasps at impossibilities; and consequently very often ensnares men into beggary, ruin, and dishonour.