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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
Short
Pessimism
Mind
Optimism
Always
Latter
Fixed
Permanent
Mirth
Former
Preferred
Consider
Cheerfulness
Habit
Transient

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Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.
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Cleanliness may be defined to be the emblem of purity of mind.
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There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.
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Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.
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I have but nine-pence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds.
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Life is not long enough for a coquette to play all her tricks in.
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I have often reflected within myself on this unaccountable humor in womankind of being smitten with everything that is showy and superficial, and on the numberless evils that befall the sex from this light fantastical disposition.
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I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up.
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Cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.
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That fine part of our construction, the eye, seems as much the receptacle and seat of our passions as the mind itself and at least it is the outward portal to introduce them to the house within, or rather the common thoroughfare to let our affections pass in and out.
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The utmost we can hope for in this world is contentment if we aim at anything higher, we shall meet with nothing but grief and disappointment. A man should direct all his studies and endeavors at making himself easy now and happy hereafter.
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It generally takes its rise either from an ill-will to mankind, a private inclination to make ourselves esteemed, an ostentation of wit, and vanity of being thought in the secrets of the world or from a desire of gratifying any of these dispositions of mind in those persons with whom we converse.
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If there's a power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue.
Joseph Addison
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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.
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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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Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.
Joseph Addison
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There is noting truly valuable which can be purchased without pains and labor. The gods have set a price upon every real and noble pleasure.
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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.
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Good Nature, and Evenness of Temper, will give you an easie Companion for Life Vertue and good Sense, an agreeable Friend Love and Constancy, a good Wife or Husband. Where we meet one Person with all these Accomplishments, we find an Hundred without any one of them.
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Should a writer single out and point his raillery at particular persons, or satirize the miserable, he might be sure of pleasing a great part of his readers, but must be a very ill man if he could please himself.
Joseph Addison