Joseph Addison Quotes

The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, the important day, Big with the fate Of Cato, and of Rome.

When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honour is a private station.15

Quick sensitivity is inseperable from a ready understanding.

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.

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.

To be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.

The House of Commons is the Representative of Men in my Condition. I consider my self as one who give my Consent to every Law which passes: A Free-Holder in our Government being of the Nature of a Citizen of Rome in that famous Commonwealth; who, by the Election of a Tribune, had a kind of remote Voice in every Law that was enacted. So that a Freeholder is but one Remove from a Legislator, and for that Reason ought to stand up in the Defense of those Laws, which are in some degree of his own making. For such is the Nature of our happy Constitution, that the Bulk of the People virtually give their Approbation to every thing they are bound to obey, and prescribe to themselves those Rules by which they are to walk.

I cast my eyes towards the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a musical instrument in his hand... and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from anything I had ever heard. ...My heart melted away in secret raptures.

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

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

But there is nothing that makes its way more directly to the Soul than Beauty, which immediately diffuses a secret satisfaction and complacency through the imagination, and gives a finishing to any thing that is Great or Uncommon.

Senyum bagi manusia adalah ibarat cahaya matahari bagi bunga.
Kelihatannya sepele, tetapi apabila disebarkan sepanjang hidup, manfaatnya tidak bisa dihitung.

To my confusion, and eternal grief, I must approve the sentence that destroys me.

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

We are always doing something for Posterity, but I would fain see Posterity do something for us.