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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.

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
Black
Seldom
Book
Fairs
Men
Fair
Reader
Married
Bachelor
Writer
Bachelors
Pleasure
Mild
Whether
Disposition

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.
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.
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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He only is a great man who can neglect the applause of the multitude and enjoy himself independent of its favor.
Joseph Addison
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A perfect tragedy is the noblest production of human nature.
Joseph Addison
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Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.
Joseph Addison
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Cleanliness may be defined to be the emblem of purity of mind.
Joseph Addison
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The greatest parts, without discretion as observed by an elegant writer, may be fatal to their owner as Polyphemus, deprived of his eyes, was only the more exposed on account of his enormous strength and stature.
Joseph Addison
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Knavery is ever suspicious of knavery.
Joseph Addison
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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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The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.
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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Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.
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.
Joseph Addison
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Artificial intelligence will never be a match for natural stupidity.
Joseph Addison
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The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, the important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome.
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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Music can noble hints impart, Engender fury, kindle love, With unsuspected eloquence can move, And manage all the man with secret art.
Joseph Addison
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I have often wondered that learning is not thought a proper ingredient in the education of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have the same improvable minds as the male part of their species.
Joseph Addison
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Marriage enlarges the Scene of our Happiness and Miseries.
Joseph Addison