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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.

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
Imagination
Appearance
Traditions
Nations
Contrary
Fabulous
Spirit
Thinks
Spirits
Spectres
Persons
Thus
Terrified
Groundless
Person
Ancient
Historian
Spectre
Much
Sacred
Reports
Profane
Think
Tradition
Reasonable
Historians
Thinking
Modern
Ghost
Ghosts

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Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.
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See in what peace a Christian can die.
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A thousand trills and quivering sounds In airy circles o'er us fly, Till, wafted by a gentle breeze, They faint and languish by degrees, And at a distance die.
Joseph Addison
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Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.
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The lives of great men cannot be writ with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness within a short time after their decease.
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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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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.
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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
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Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.
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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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That courage which arises from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us, acts always in a uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason.
Joseph Addison
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The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education.
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Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.
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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.
Joseph Addison
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Music, when thus applied, raises noble hints in the mind of the hearer, and fills it with great conceptions. It strengthens devotion, and advances praise into rapture.
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Love is a second life it grows into the soul, warms every vein, and beats in every pulse.
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To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.
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There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
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There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.
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Sir Francis Bacon observed that a well-written book, compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses' serpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured those of the Egyptians.
Joseph Addison