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Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.

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
Life
Use
Ridicule
Sense
Attacking
Human
Generally
Everything
Laughter
Humans
Laugh
Made
Laughing
Good
Humor
Men
Virtue
Praiseworthy

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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Every one knows the veneration which was paid by the Jews to a name so great, wonderful, and holy. They would not let it enter even into their religious discourses. What can we then think of those who make use of so tremendous a name, in the ordinary expression of their anger, mirth, and most impertinent passions?
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Riches expose a man to pride and luxury, and a foolish elation of heart.
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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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The Fear of Death often proves Mortal.
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Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness and miseries. A marriage of love is pleasant a marriage of interest, easy and a marriage where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and, indeed, all the sweets of life.
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Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.
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Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.
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O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not! The best may err, but you are good.
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When a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.
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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.
Joseph Addison
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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.
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.
Joseph Addison
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What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
Joseph Addison
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Faith is kept alive in us, and gathers strength, more from practice than from speculations.
Joseph Addison
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Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.
Joseph Addison
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A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.
Joseph Addison
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Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind
Joseph Addison
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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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A jealous man is very quick in his application: he knows how to find a double edge in an invective, and to draw a satire on himself out of a panegyrick on another.
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A man governs himself by the dictates of virtue and good sense, who acts without zeal or passion in points that are of no consequence but when the whole community is shaken, and the safety of the public endangered, the appearance of a philosophical or an affected indolence must arise either from stupidity or perfidiousness.
Joseph Addison