English essayist, poet & playwright (1672-1719)
If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, July 24, 1711
Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy that are preceded by a long courtship.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Dec. 29, 1711
Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Chill'd with tears, kill'd with fears, endless torments dwell about thee: yet who would live, and live without thee!
JOSEPH ADDISON
Rosamond
Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, Jul. 18, 1713
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
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us!
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
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
True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, August 15, 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
When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Freeholder, May 14, 1716
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
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
See in what peace a Christian can die!
JOSEPH ADDISON
last words, Jun. 17, 1719
Better to die ten thousand deaths, than wound my honour.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Mar. 11, 1711
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
There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, May 24, 1711
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
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
Let echo, too, perform her part / Prolonging every note with art / And in a low expiring strain / Play all the concert o'er again.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Ode on St. Cecilia's Day