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Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

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
First
Exercise
Rises
Becomes
Application
Particular
Length
Study
Proportion
Upon
Improvement
Science
Entertainment
Art
Delight
Bestow
Firsts
Thus
Improves

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Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.
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The time never lies heavy upon him it is impossible for him to be alone.
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Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacence, if they discover none of the like in themselves.
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It was a saying of an ancient philosopher, which I find some of our writers have ascribed to Queen Elizabeth, who perhaps might have taken occasion to repeat it, that a good face is a letter of recommendation.
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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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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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Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eyebrow call a man a scoundrel.
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Life is not long enough for a coquette to play all her tricks in.
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The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.
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A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.
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There are no more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of Nature, find work for the poor, and wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great.
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Physic is, for the most part, only a substitute for temperance and exercise.
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Fame is a good so wholly foreign to our natures that we have no faculty in the soul adapted to it, nor any organ in the body to relish it an object of desire placed out of the possibility of fruition.
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It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.
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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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A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world and if in the present life his happiness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will arise in the next from the gratification of them.
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As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.
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There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and satires that are written with wit and spirit are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable.
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Riches expose a man to pride and luxury, and a foolish elation of heart.
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