Joseph Addison Quotes

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

Force us to yield. ’Twill never be too late To sue6 for chains and own7 a conqueror. Why should Rome fall a moment ere her time? No, let us draw her term of freedom out 95 In its full length, and spin it to the last, So shall we gain still one day’s liberty; And let me perish, but in Cato’s judgment, A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.

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.

Authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding places in a voluminous writer.

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.

He who hesitates is lost.

It is indeed very possible, that the Persons we laugh at may in the main of their Characters be much wiser Men than our selves; but if they would have us laugh at them, they must fall short of us in those Respects which stir up this Passion.

Music religious heat inspires, It wakes the soul, and lifts it high, And wings it with sublime desires, And fits it to bespeak the Deity.

Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.

Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us!

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

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

Cato Let not a torrent of impetuous zeal Transport thee thus beyond the bounds of reason:3 True fortitude is seen in great exploits, 45 That justice warrants, and that wisdom guides, All else is towering phrensy4 and distraction. Are not the lives of those who draw the sword In Rome’s defence intrusted to our care? Should we thus lead them to a field of slaughter, 50 Might not the impartial world with reason say We lavished at our deaths the blood of thousands, To grace our fall, and make our ruin glorious?

I then turned again to the vision which I had been so long contemplating: but instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the long hollow valley of Bagdad, with oxen, sheep, and camels grazing upon the sides of it.

Cato Would Lucius have me live to swell the number Of Caesar’s slaves, or by a base submission 30 Give up the cause of Rome, and own a tyrant?