English essayist, poet & playwright (1672-1719)
Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, Jul. 18, 1713
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles at the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
Were all the vexations of life put together, we should find that a great part of them proceed from those calumnies and reproaches we spread abroad concerning one another.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, September 15, 1714
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us!
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
See in what peace a Christian can die!
JOSEPH ADDISON
last words, Jun. 17, 1719
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 which can possibly befall us.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, Aug. 15, 1713
To be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, Jul. 4, 1713
Oh! think what anxious moments pass between the birth of plots, and their last fatal periods. Oh! 'Tis a dreadful interval of time, filled up with horror all, and big with death!
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
Among great geniuses those few draw the admiration of all the world upon them, and stand up as the prodigies of mankind, who, by the mere strength of natural parts, and without any assistance of art or learning, have produced works that were the delight of their own times and the wonder of posterity. There appears something nobly wild and extravagant in these great natural geniuses, that is infinitely more beautiful than all turn and polishing of what the French call a bel esprit, by which they would express a genius refined by conversation, reflection, and the reading of the most polite authors. The greatest genius which runs through the arts and sciences takes a kind of tincture from them and falls unavoidably into imitation.
JOSEPH ADDISON
"Genius", Essays and Tales
True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, August 15, 1712
It is a great presumption to ascribe our successes to our own management, and not to esteem ourselves upon any blessing, rather as it is the bounty of heaven, than the acquisition of our own prudence.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Feb. 5, 1712
One of the best springs of generous and worthy actions, is having generous and worthy thoughts of ourselves: whoever has a mean opinion of the dignity of his nature will act in no higher a rank than he has allotted himself in his own estimation.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, October 31, 1711
What means this heaviness that hangs upon me?
This lethargy that creeps through all my senses?
Nature, oppress'd and harrass'd out with care,
Sinks down to rest.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Mar. 11, 1711
When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Freeholder, May 14, 1716
The sun, which is as the great soul of the universe, and produces all the necessaries of life, has a particular influence in cheering the mind of man, and making the heart glad.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, May 24, 1712
Disease generally brings that equality which death completes.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Saturday Magazine, November 11, 1837
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.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Nov. 13, 1712
I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves and useful to the world.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, Jul. 18, 1713
Blessings may appear under the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let him have patience, and he will see them in their proper figures.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, Jul. 25, 1713