Quotes from Joseph Addison

Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.

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

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.

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.

Fables take off from the severity of instruction, and enforce it at the same time that they conceal it.

The schoolboy counts the time till the return of the holidays; the minor longs to be of age; the lover is impatient till he is married.

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!

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

Love is a second life; it grows into the soul, warms every vein, and beats in every pulse.

When all thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view I'm lost, in wonder, love and praise.

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

The lives of great men cannot be writ with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness within a short time after their decease.

I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up.

Nothing lies on our hands with such uneasiness as time. Wretched and thoughtless creatures! In the only place where covetousness were a virtue we turn prodigals.

The time never lies heavy upon him; it is impossible for him to be alone.

Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.

Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.

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

Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep the fire out of the one, and the frost out of the other.

Let freedom never perish in your hands.

A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world and ignorance of mankind.

Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it.