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There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rise above reason, and yet fall infinitely short of it.

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
Animal
Opinion
Infinitely
Fall
Mysterious
Nature
Rise
Anything
Instinct
Reason
Thus
Animals

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Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.
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Mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity the gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.
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When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.
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What can that man fear who takes care to please a Being that is able to crush all his adversaries?
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An opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratify the senses and keep up an indolent attention in the audience.
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Among the writers of antiquity there are none who instruct us more openly in the manners of their respective times in which they lived than those who have employed themselves in satire, under whatever dress it may appear.
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We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion.
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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.
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We find the Works of Nature still more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art.
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From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.
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The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.
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Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
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How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created?
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Cleanliness may be defined to be the emblem of purity of mind.
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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.
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Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
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Let freedom never perish in your hands.
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Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.
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Hunting is not a proper employment for a thinking man.
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Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.
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