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 ADDISONMan is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
More Joseph Addison Quotes
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Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands.
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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.
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.
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One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.
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.
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I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck.
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There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.
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How is it possible for those who are men of honor in their persons, thus to become notorious liars in their party
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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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Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.
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According to this definition there is nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and falsehood.
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When all thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view I’m lost, in wonder, love and praise.
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Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.
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There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.
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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.
JOSEPH ADDISON