Quote

Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.

Joseph Addison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Guards
Amiable
Modesty
Betray
False
Virtue
True
Contemptible
Nothing
Betrays

More quotes by Joseph Addison

Image
If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend.
Joseph Addison
Image
Great souls by instinct to each other turn, demand alliance, and in friendship burn.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
Blesses his stars and thinks it luxury.
Joseph Addison
Image
Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.
Joseph Addison
Image
If men, who in their hearts are friends to a government, forbear giving it their utmost assistance against its enemies, they put it in the power of a few desperate men to ruin the welfare of those who are much superior to them in strength, number, and interest.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
In my Lucia's absence Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear, And grief, and rage and love rise up at once, And with variety of pain distract me.
Joseph Addison
Image
A great large book is a great evil.
Joseph Addison
Image
Most of the trades, professions, and ways of living among mankind, take their original either from the love of the pleasure, or the fear of want. The former, when it becomes too violent, degenerates into luxury, and the latter into avarice.
Joseph Addison
Image
The care of our national commerce redounds more to the riches and prosperity of the public than any other act of government.
Joseph Addison
Image
Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.
Joseph Addison
Image
We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion.
Joseph Addison
Image
An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.
Joseph Addison
Image
Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit.
Joseph Addison
Image
Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep fire out of the one, and frost out of the other.
Joseph Addison
Image
A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.
Joseph Addison
Image
Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.
Joseph Addison
Image
Who does not more admire Cicero as an author than as a consul of Rome?
Joseph Addison
Image
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.
Joseph Addison