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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
Fixed
Permanent
Mirth
Former
Preferred
Consider
Cheerfulness
Habit
Transient
Short
Pessimism
Mind
Optimism
Always
Latter
More quotes by Joseph Addison
I have often wondered that learning is not thought a proper ingredient in the education of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have the same improvable minds as the male part of their species.
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
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
The Fear of Death often proves Mortal.
Joseph Addison
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
Mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity the gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.
Joseph Addison
For my own part, I am apt to join in the opinion with those who believe that all the regions of Nature swarm with spirits, and that we have multitudes of spectators on all our actions when we think ourselves most alone.
Joseph Addison
The moral perfections of the Deity, the more attentively, we consider, the more perfectly still shall we know them.
Joseph Addison
An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.
Joseph Addison
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
Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.
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
Nature in her whole drama never drew such a part she has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making.
Joseph Addison
Music religious heat inspires, It wakes the soul, and lifts it high, And wings it with sublime desires, And fits it to bespeak the Deity.
Joseph Addison
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
It is certain that there is no other passion which does produce such contrary effects in so great a degree. But this may be said for love, that if you strike it out of the soul, life would be insipid, and our being but half animated.
Joseph Addison
How is it possible for those who are men of honor in their persons, thus to become notorious liars in their party
Joseph Addison
If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend.
Joseph Addison
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
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