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Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.

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
Awkwardness
Awkward
Merit
Mere
Confidence
Literature
Without
Bashfulness

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I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.
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Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind's distinguishing perfection That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her And imitates her actions where she is not: It is not to be sported with.
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Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.
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We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion.
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The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well written play, where the principal persons still act in character, whatever the fate in which they undergo.
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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.
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Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.
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Hunting is not a proper employment for a thinking man.
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Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.
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A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.
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What I spent I lost what I possessed is left to others what I gave away remains with me.
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Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.
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If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.
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From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.
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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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Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.
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I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves and useful to the world.
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A thousand trills and quivering sounds In airy circles o'er us fly, Till, wafted by a gentle breeze, They faint and languish by degrees, And at a distance die.
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Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.
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Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.
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