Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
Joseph Addison
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Confess
Cruel
Motive
Delight
Misery
Father
Others
Make
Delights
More quotes by Joseph Addison
Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.
Joseph Addison
Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.
Joseph Addison
Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.
Joseph Addison
It is wonderful to see persons of sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards.
Joseph Addison
Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.
Joseph Addison
A thousand glorious actions that might claim Triumphant laurels, and immortal fame, Confus'd in crowds of glorious actions lie, And troops of heroes undistinguished die.
Joseph Addison
Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.
Joseph Addison
I would have every zealous man examine his heart thoroughly, and I believe he will often find that what be calls a zeal for his religion is either pride, interest, or ill-repute.
Joseph Addison
Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties, and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul.
Joseph Addison
Most of the trades, professions, and ways of living among mankind, take their original either from the love of the pleasure, or the fear of want. The former, when it becomes too violent, degenerates into luxury, and the latter into avarice.
Joseph Addison
Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses.
Joseph Addison
One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.
Joseph Addison
In my Lucia's absence Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear, And grief, and rage and love rise up at once, And with variety of pain distract me.
Joseph Addison
I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.
Joseph Addison
The English Writers of Tragedy are possessed with a Notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent Person in Distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his Troubles, or made him triumph over his Enemies.
Joseph Addison