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
education wise art
A statue lies hid in a block of marble, and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone; the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero,--the wise, the good, or the great man,--very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light.
half world next
The first of all virtues is innocence; the next is modesty. If we banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the virtue that is in it.
years yesterday great-day
When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
philosophical passion men
A man governs himself by the dictates of virtue and good sense, who acts without zeal or passion in points that are of no consequence; but when the whole community is shaken, and the safety of the public endangered, the appearance of a philosophical or an affected indolence must arise either from stupidity or perfidiousness.
fate waiting judgment
On you, my lord, with anxious fear I wait, and from your judgment must expect my fate.
heart men numbers
If men, who in their hearts are friends to a government, forbear giving it their utmost assistance against its enemies, they put it in the power of a few desperate men to ruin the welfare of those who are much superior to them in strength, number, and interest.
world mankind spectators
Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species.
adventure men innocent-man
There are a sort of knight-errants in the world, who, quite contrary to those in romance, are perpetually seeking adventures to bring virgins into distress, and to ruin innocence. When men of rank and figure pass away their lives in these criminal pursuits and practices, they ought to consider that they render themselves more vile and despicable than any innocent man can be, whatever low station his fortune or birth have placed him in.
omnipotence perfection justice
Justice is that which is practiced by God himself, and to be practiced in its perfection by none but him. Omniscience and omnipotence are requisite for the full exertion of it.
witty men thinking
It is a melancholy consideration that there should be several among us so hardened and deluded as to think an oath a proper subject for a jest; and to make this, which is one of the most solemn acts of religion, an occasion of mirth. Yet such is the depravation of our manners at present, that nothing is more frequent than to hear profligate men ridiculing, to the best of their abilities, these sacred pledges of their duty and allegiance; and endeavouring to be witty upon themselves, for daring to prevaricate with God and man.
country men hands
I do not propose to our British ladies, that they should turn Amazons in the service of their sovereign, nor so much as let their nails grow for the defence of their country. The men will take the work of the field off their hands, and show the world, that English valour cannot be matched when it is animated by English beauty.
morality endeavor temper
I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality.
support wicked use
There is no greater sign of a bad cause, than when the patrons of it are reduced to the necessity of making use of the most wicked artifices to support it.
beautiful death virtue
How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue!