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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

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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
Reasonable
Humility
Pride
Talent
Recommend
Doe
Eloquence
Great
Modesty
Every
Possessed
Men
Sets

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A great large book is a great evil.
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But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.
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Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.
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A satire should expose nothing but what is corrigible, and should make a due discrimination between those that are and those that are not the proper objects of it.
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We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are.
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What pity is it That we can die, but once to serve our country.
Joseph Addison
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Music is the only sensual gratification which mankind may indulge in to excess without injury to their moral or religious feelings.
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The first race of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rule of art.
Joseph Addison
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The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.
Joseph Addison
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Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.
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There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
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Nothing lies on our hands with such uneasiness as time. Wretched and thoughtless creatures! In the only place where covetousness were a virtue we turn prodigals.
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Sir Francis Bacon observed that a well-written book, compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses' serpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured those of the Egyptians.
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The passion for praise, which is so very vehement in the fair sex, produces excellent effects in women of sense, who desire to be admired for that which only deserves admiration.
Joseph Addison
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What can that man fear who takes care to please a Being that is able to crush all his adversaries?
Joseph Addison
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'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
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Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.
Joseph Addison
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It is easier for an artful Man, who is not in Love, to persuade his Mistress he has a Passion for her, and to succeed in his Pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest Violence. True Love hath ten thousand Griefs, Impatiencies and Resentments, that render a Man unamiable in the Eyes of the Person whose Affection he sollicits.
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There is no passion that steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride.
Joseph Addison
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Our friends don't see our faults, or conceal them, or soften them.
Joseph Addison