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An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

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
Relate
Committed
Debarred
Dear
Ostentatious
Talking
Ostentation
Rather
Blunder
Persons
Conceited
Person
Blunders
Men
Absurdity

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The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out of a proper method to catch the reader's eye without which, a good thing may pass over unobserved, or lost among commissions of bankrupt.
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How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created?
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There are no more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of Nature, find work for the poor, and wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great.
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Mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity the gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.
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Our friends don't see our faults, or conceal them, or soften them.
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It is impossible for authors to discover beauties in one another's works they have eyes only for spots and blemishes.
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Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species.
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Contentment produces, in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire for them.
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Let freedom never perish in your hands.
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Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.
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When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.
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If our zeal were true and genuine we should be much more angry with a sinner than a heretic.
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He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
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A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.
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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.
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I have often reflected within myself on this unaccountable humor in womankind of being smitten with everything that is showy and superficial, and on the numberless evils that befall the sex from this light fantastical disposition.
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Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.
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Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.
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I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.
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Whether dark presages of the night proceed from any latent power of the soul during her abstraction, or from any operation of subordinate spirits, has been a dispute.
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