Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.
JOSEPH ADDISONEncourage innocent amusement.
More Joseph Addison Quotes
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Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady’s attire this is the single excellence; for to be what some people call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
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.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
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.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
We are growing serious, and, let me tell you, that’s the very next step to being dull.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
Riches expose a man to pride and luxury, and a foolish elation of heart.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
The voice of reason is more to be regarded than the bent of any present inclination; since inclination will at length come over to reason, though we can never force reason to comply with inclination.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
There is something very sublime, though very fanciful, in Plato’s description of the Supreme Being,–that truth is His body and light His shadow.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
Whether this happens because they stay so long and attend their work so diligently that they forget the faces and persons, which they first sat down with, or whatever it is, they seldom rise from the toilet the same woman they appeared when they began to dress
JOSEPH ADDISON -
Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
Misery and ignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttlefish that, when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens the water about him till he becomes invisible.
JOSEPH ADDISON






