Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Matters
Greatness
Age
Antagonists
Matter
Antagonist
Whole
Rivalry
Right
Posterity
Divided
Privilege

More quotes by Joseph Addison

Image
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
Image
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
Most of the trades, professions, and ways of living among mankind, take their original either from the love of the pleasure, or the fear of want. The former, when it becomes too violent, degenerates into luxury, and the latter into avarice.
Joseph Addison
Image
Riches expose a man to pride and luxury, and a foolish elation of heart.
Joseph Addison
Image
A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.
Joseph Addison
Image
Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador.
Joseph Addison
Image
A well regulated commerce is not, like law, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked with hands but, on the contrary, flourishes by multitudes, and gives employment to all its professors.
Joseph Addison
Image
To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.
Joseph Addison
Image
Hunting is not a proper employment for a thinking man.
Joseph Addison
Image
A man whose extraordinary reputation thus lifts him up to the notice and observation of mankind, draws a multitude of eyes upon him, that will narrowly inspect every part of him.
Joseph Addison
Image
It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.
Joseph Addison
Image
The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
Though a man cannot abstain from being weak, he may from being vicious.
Joseph Addison
Image
Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eyebrow call a man a scoundrel.
Joseph Addison
Image
There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rise above reason, and yet fall infinitely short of it.
Joseph Addison
Image
Oh, Liberty! thou goddess heavenly bright! Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight! Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign, And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train.
Joseph Addison
Image
Guard thy heart on this weak side, where most our nature fails.
Joseph Addison
Image
The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life... Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.
Joseph Addison