Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.
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
Wells
Well
Nothing
Nonsense
Capable
Music
More quotes by Joseph Addison
The statue lies hid in a block of marble and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish.
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
Should a writer single out and point his raillery at particular persons, or satirize the miserable, he might be sure of pleasing a great part of his readers, but must be a very ill man if he could please himself.
Joseph Addison
Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.
Joseph Addison
Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
A perfect tragedy is the noblest production of human nature.
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
Learning, like traveling and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more insufferable by supplying variety of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in absurdities.
Joseph Addison
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.
Joseph Addison
Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.
Joseph Addison
Talk not of love: thou never knew'st its force.
Joseph Addison
What can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being?
Joseph Addison
There is noting truly valuable which can be purchased without pains and labor. The gods have set a price upon every real and noble pleasure.
Joseph Addison
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
True fortitude is seen in great exploits That justice warrants, and that wisdom guides And all else is tow'ring phrenzy and distraction.
Joseph Addison
The ways of heaven are dark and intricate, Puzzled in mazes, and perplex'd with errors Our understanding traces them in vain, Lost and bewilder'd in the fruitless search Nor sees with how much art the windings run, Nor where the regular confusion ends.
Joseph Addison
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
It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.
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
