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The Gods in bounty work up storms about us, that give mankind occasion to exert their hidden strength, and throw our into practice virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calms of life.

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
Virtue
Occasions
Exert
Practice
Gods
Bounty
Lying
Storm
Storms
Give
Seasons
Concealed
Giving
Throw
Occasion
Work
Calm
Smooth
Life
Mankind
Virtues
Calms
Strength
Hidden
Shun

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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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.
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But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.
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I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.
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Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.
Joseph Addison
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Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.
Joseph Addison
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When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
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Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us, we see the worst side of ourselves.
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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.
Joseph Addison
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Heaven is not to be looked upon only as the reward, but the natural effect, of a religious life.
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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.
Joseph Addison
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A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts
Joseph Addison
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There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society.
Joseph Addison
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Every one knows the veneration which was paid by the Jews to a name so great, wonderful, and holy. They would not let it enter even into their religious discourses. What can we then think of those who make use of so tremendous a name, in the ordinary expression of their anger, mirth, and most impertinent passions?
Joseph Addison
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A satire should expose nothing but what is corrigible, and should make a due discrimination between those that are and those that are not the proper objects of it.
Joseph Addison
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Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!
Joseph Addison
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The woman that deliberates is lost.
Joseph Addison
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Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.
Joseph Addison
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Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.
Joseph Addison
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Faith is kept alive in us, and gathers strength, more from practice than from speculations.
Joseph Addison
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There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.
Joseph Addison