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I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.
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
Permanent
Mirth
Former
Preferred
Consider
Cheerfulness
Habit
Transient
Short
Pessimism
Mind
Optimism
Always
Latter
Fixed
More quotes by Joseph Addison
A perfect tragedy is the noblest production of human nature.
Joseph Addison
The consciousness of being loved softens the keenest pang even at the moment of parting yea, even the eternal farewell is robbed of half of its bitterness when uttered in accents that breathe love to the last sigh.
Joseph Addison
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
A thousand glorious actions that might claim Triumphant laurels, and immortal fame, Confus'd in crowds of glorious actions lie, And troops of heroes undistinguished die.
Joseph Addison
Music is the only sensual gratification which mankind may indulge in to excess without injury to their moral or religious feelings.
Joseph Addison
Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties, and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul.
Joseph Addison
Our friends don't see our faults, or conceal them, or soften them.
Joseph Addison
Men naturally warm and heady are transported with the greatest flush of good-nature.
Joseph Addison
When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.
Joseph Addison
Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.
Joseph Addison
Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.
Joseph Addison
An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.
Joseph Addison
Nothing that isn't a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.
Joseph Addison
The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.
Joseph Addison
A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.
Joseph Addison
There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.
Joseph Addison
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.
Joseph Addison
I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.
Joseph Addison
Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatever.
Joseph Addison
The statue lies hid in a block of marble and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish.
Joseph Addison