Quotes from Joseph Addison

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

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.

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.

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.

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

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

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.

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

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.

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.

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

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in proper figures.

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, in the enjoyment of one's self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance you bosom friend, experience your wise councellor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

An empty desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer.

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