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A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections

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
Upon
Imperfections
True
Critic
Dwell
Imperfection
Critics
Ought
Inspiration
Rather
Excellencies

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.
Joseph Addison
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A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.
Joseph Addison
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Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency.
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Beauty commonly produces love, but cleanliness preserves it. Age itself is not unamiable while it is preserved clean and unsullied like a piece of metal constantly kept smooth and bright, we look on it with more pleasure than on a new vessel cankered with rust.
Joseph Addison
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'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, and makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile... 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, and hold in balance each contending state, To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, and answer her afflicted neighbours' prayer... Soon as her fleets appear their terrors cease.
Joseph Addison
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Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species.
Joseph Addison
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An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.
Joseph Addison
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Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Joseph Addison
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Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: the first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for mine enemies.
Joseph Addison
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Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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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
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What can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being?
Joseph Addison
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Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.
Joseph Addison
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Physic, for the most part, is nothing else but the substitute of exercise and temperance.
Joseph Addison
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Women were formed to temper Mankind, and sooth them into Tenderness and Compassion not to set an Edge upon their Minds, and blowup in them those Passions which are too apt to rise of their own Accord.
Joseph Addison
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A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.
Joseph Addison
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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
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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
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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