If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.
JOSEPH ADDISONThere is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
More Joseph Addison Quotes
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Were a man’s sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life.
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Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
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The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.
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The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasures.
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There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.
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Love is a second life; it grows into the soul, warms every vein, and beats in every pulse.
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It is ridiculous for any man to criticize on the works of another, who has not distinguished himself by his own performances.
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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.
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According to this definition there is nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and falsehood.
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Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.
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The great difference is, that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by suppressing some, and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words.
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Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
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One may know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding.
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Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
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If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.
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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.
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Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
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Women were formed to temper Mankind, and sooth them into Tenderness and Compassion; not to set an Edge upon their Minds, and blowup in them those Passions which are too apt to rise of their own Accord.
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There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance
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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.
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It is not the business of virtue to extirpate the affections of the mind, but to regulate them.
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Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.
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Misery and ignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels.
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I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.
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What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.
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The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas.
JOSEPH ADDISON