Best Joseph Addison Quotes

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.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.

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

Knowledge is that which, next to virtue, truly raises one person above another.

The disease of jealously is so malignant that is converts all it takes into its own nourishment.

Young people soon give, and forget insults, but old age is slow in both.

There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rise above reason, and yet fall infinitely short of it.

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

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

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

Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

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.

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

Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below.

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.

As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men.

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

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

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 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.

Our friends don't see our faults, or conceal them, or soften them.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.

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.

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

Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

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.

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

Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.

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

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

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.

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants...

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.

The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasures.

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

There is nothing more requisite in business than dispatch.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.

A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

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!