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

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Among the English authors, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others. That noble extravagance of fancy, which he had in so great perfection, thoroughly qualified him to touch the weak, superstitious part of his readers' imagination, and made him capable of succeeding where he had nothing to support him besides the strength of his own genius.
Joseph Addison
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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
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Music, when thus applied, raises noble hints in the mind of the hearer, and fills it with great conceptions. It strengthens devotion, and advances praise into rapture.
Joseph Addison
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But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.
Joseph Addison
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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
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Riches expose a man to pride and luxury, and a foolish elation of heart.
Joseph Addison
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It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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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
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Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.
Joseph Addison
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There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.
Joseph Addison
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Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.
Joseph Addison
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Jesters do often prove prophets.
Joseph Addison
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All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter
Joseph Addison
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The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
Joseph Addison
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Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species.
Joseph Addison
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Whether dark presages of the night proceed from any latent power of the soul during her abstraction, or from any operation of subordinate spirits, has been a dispute.
Joseph Addison
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Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.
Joseph Addison
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There is nobody so weak of invention that cannot make some little stories to villify his enemy.
Joseph Addison
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A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes that there is no virtue but on his own side, and that there are not men as honest as himself who may differ from him in political principles.
Joseph Addison