Quotes from Joseph Addison

See in what peace a Christian can die.

The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

The fraternity of the henpecked.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

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

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

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

Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object; unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a perpetual succession of miracles rising into view.

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

Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.

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

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.

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.

There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.

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.

A person terrified with the imagination of spectres is more reasonable than one who thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless.

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.

In my Lucia's absence Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden; I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear, And grief, and rage and love rise up at once, And with variety of pain distract me.

Health and cheerfulness naturally beget each other.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years; But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amid the war of elements, The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

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.