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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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Joseph Addison
Age: 47 †
Born: 1672
Born: May 1
Died: 1719
Died: June 17
Editor
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Journalist
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Poet
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Milston
Wiltshire
Joseph Addisson
Right Hon. Joseph Addison
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More quotes by Joseph Addison

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Nature is full of wonders every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities, as could not be impressed on it by a power and wisdom less than infinite.
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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The time never lies heavy upon him it is impossible for him to be alone.
Joseph Addison
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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
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There is nothing in which men more deceive themselves than in what they call zeal.
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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The man who lives by hope, will die by hunger.
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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We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are.
Joseph Addison
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He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
Joseph Addison
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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
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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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The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature, that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment.
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 impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.
Joseph Addison
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Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
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?
Joseph Addison
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One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.
Joseph Addison
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One would fancy that the zealots in atheism would be exempt from the single fault which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervor of religion. But so it is, that irreligion is propagated with as much fierceness and contention, wrath and indignation, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it.
Joseph Addison
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In private conversation between intimate friends, the wisest men very often talk like the weakest : for indeed the talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.
Joseph Addison