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Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.

Joseph Addison

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Joseph Addison
Age: 47 †
Born: 1672
Born: May 1
Died: 1719
Died: June 17
Editor
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Journalist
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Milston
Wiltshire
Joseph Addisson
Right Hon. Joseph Addison
Lights
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Temper
Steady
Guilt
Calm
Sars
Mild
Philosophy
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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.
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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!
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When a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.
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To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.
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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.
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Nature is full of wonders every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities, as could not be impressed on it by a power and wisdom less than infinite.
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Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.
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The spacious firmament on high, And all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim.
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The care of our national commerce redounds more to the riches and prosperity of the public than any other act of government.
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Adulterers, in the first stages of the church, were excommunicated forever, and unqualified all their lives for bearing a part in Christian assemblies, notwithstanding they might seek it with tears, and all the appearances of the most unfeigned repentance.
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What can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being?
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An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
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If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.
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One would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged, the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started into discourse but, instead of this we find that conversation is never so much straightened and confined, as in numerous assemblies.
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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.
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Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!
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Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.
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Jesters do often prove prophets.
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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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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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