What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
JOSEPH ADDISONIf 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.
More Joseph Addison Quotes
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A good character, good habits and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of all ill-luck that fools ever dreamed.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
A person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith than by faith without morality.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
According to this definition there is nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and falsehood.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
Hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
Honor’s a fine imaginary notion, that draws in raw and unexperienced men to real mischiefs.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
I am wonderfully pleased when I meet with any passage in an old Greek or Latin author, that is not blown upon, and which I have never met with in any quotation.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
When all thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view I’m lost, in wonder, love and praise.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
Wit is the fetching of congruity out of incongruity.
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 -
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 -
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.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
It is not the business of virtue to extirpate the affections of the mind, but to regulate them.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.
JOSEPH ADDISON -
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world; and if in the present life his happiness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will arise in the next from the gratification of them.
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