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
dream future men
Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all prospect of a future state is only fancy and delusion? Is there any merit in being the messenger of ill news. If it is a dream, let me enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.
time years honor
He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
conspiracy should
Conspiracies no sooner should be formed Than executed.
modesty virtue betray
Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.
passing-away together dozen
It is wonderful to see persons of sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards.
criminals modesty false-modesty
True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable.
luxury vices ancient
We see the pernicious effects of luxury in the ancient Romans, who immediately found themselves poor as soon as this vice got footing among them.
kindness men dull
Authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a voluminous writer.
eye mirth innocence
There is nothing which one regards so much with an eye of mirth and pity as innocence when it has in it a dash of folly.
weed rocks myrtle
E'en the rough rocks with tender myrtle bloom, and trodden weeds send out a rich perfume.
flattery persons listeners
The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.
time eternity
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.
jealousy pain men
Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.
nature fall confusion
Should the whole frame of nature round him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world.