Joseph Addison Quotes

True benevolence, or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathises with the distress of every creature capable of sensation

The ideal man bears the accidents of life With dignity and grace, the best of circumstances.

"We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would no end of them."- On the Right Use of Time

Silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them.

Were you with these, my prince, you'd soon forget The pale, unripened beauties of the north.

Is there not some chosen curse, Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin?

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

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?

Thy life is not thy own, when Rome demands it.

One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.

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.

Lucius There fled the greatest soul that ever warmed 100 A Roman breast. O Cato! O my friend! Thy will shall be religiously observed. But let us bear this awful corpse to Caesar, And lay it in his sight, that it may stand A fence betwixt us and the victor’s wrath; 105 Cato, though dead, shall still protect his friends. From hence, let fierce contending nations know What dire effects from civil discord flow. ’Tis this that shakes our country with alarms, And gives up Rome a prey to Roman arms, 110 Produces fraud, and cruelty, and strife, And robs the guilty world of Cato’s life. [Exeunt omnes.]

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

the patronage of literature has gone from the cultivated noble who appreciates in much accordance with the fashion of his time, and passed into the holding of the English people. Addison and Steele lived in the transition time between these periods. They were born into one of them and — Steele immediately, Addison through Steele's influence upon him — they were trusty guides into the other. Thus the 'Spectator' is not merely the best example of their skill. It represents also, perhaps best represents, a wholesome Revolution in our Literature. The essential character of English Literature was no more changed than characters of Englishmen were altered by the Declaration of Right which Prince William of Orange had accepted with the English Crown, when Addison had lately left and Steele was leaving Charterhouse for Oxford. Yet change there was, and Steele saw to the heart of it, even in his College days.

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