Quote

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

Joseph Addison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Joseph Addison
Age: 47 †
Born: 1672
Born: May 1
Died: 1719
Died: June 17
Editor
Essayist
Journalist
Librettist
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Milston
Wiltshire
Joseph Addisson
Right Hon. Joseph Addison
Men
Sets
Reasonable
Humility
Pride
Talent
Recommend
Doe
Eloquence
Great
Modesty
Every
Possessed

More quotes by Joseph Addison

Image
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.
Joseph Addison
Image
An opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratify the senses and keep up an indolent attention in the audience.
Joseph Addison
Image
The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas.
Joseph Addison
Image
'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, and makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile... 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, and hold in balance each contending state, To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, and answer her afflicted neighbours' prayer... Soon as her fleets appear their terrors cease.
Joseph Addison
Image
A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.
Joseph Addison
Image
Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.
Joseph Addison
Image
Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacence, if they discover none of the like in themselves.
Joseph Addison
Image
Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.
Joseph Addison
Image
A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.
Joseph Addison
Image
What I spent I lost what I possessed is left to others what I gave away remains with me.
Joseph Addison
Image
My death and life, My bane and antidote, are both before me.
Joseph Addison
Image
It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.
Joseph Addison
Image
When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.
Joseph Addison
Image
There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society.
Joseph Addison
Image
It generally takes its rise either from an ill-will to mankind, a private inclination to make ourselves esteemed, an ostentation of wit, and vanity of being thought in the secrets of the world or from a desire of gratifying any of these dispositions of mind in those persons with whom we converse.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
Joseph Addison
Image
There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and satires that are written with wit and spirit are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable.
Joseph Addison
Image
Waning moons their settled periods keep, to swell the billows and ferment the deep.
Joseph Addison
Image
I have but nine-pence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds.
Joseph Addison