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Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.

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
Certain
Countenance
Giving
Wit
Good
Air
Conversation
Gives
Attitude
Beauty
Amiable
Nature
Agreeable

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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If there's a power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue.
Joseph Addison
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Good Nature, and Evenness of Temper, will give you an easie Companion for Life Vertue and good Sense, an agreeable Friend Love and Constancy, a good Wife or Husband. Where we meet one Person with all these Accomplishments, we find an Hundred without any one of them.
Joseph Addison
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Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
Joseph Addison
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Great souls by instinct to each other turn, demand alliance, and in friendship burn.
Joseph Addison
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The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.
Joseph Addison
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The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, the important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome.
Joseph Addison
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There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and satires that are written with wit and spirit are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable.
Joseph Addison
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There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.
Joseph Addison
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The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education.
Joseph Addison
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Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!
Joseph Addison
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Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.
Joseph Addison
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If men, who in their hearts are friends to a government, forbear giving it their utmost assistance against its enemies, they put it in the power of a few desperate men to ruin the welfare of those who are much superior to them in strength, number, and interest.
Joseph Addison
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To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.
Joseph Addison
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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
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A great large book is a great evil.
Joseph Addison
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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
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The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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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
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Cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.
Joseph Addison