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An opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratify the senses and keep up an indolent attention in the audience.

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
Opera
Senses
Allowed
Extravagantly
Design
Decorations
Audience
Indolent
Attention
Gratify
Keep
Lavish
May
Decoration

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Marriage enlarges the Scene of our Happiness and Miseries.
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Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind's distinguishing perfection That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her And imitates her actions where she is not: It is not to be sported with.
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I have often reflected within myself on this unaccountable humor in womankind of being smitten with everything that is showy and superficial, and on the numberless evils that befall the sex from this light fantastical disposition.
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Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species.
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It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.
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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.
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Health and happiness give rise to each other.
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Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.
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If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.
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It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belongto his Neighbour.
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There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, That drunkenness does not produce but discover faults. Common experience teaches the contrary. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses dualities into the mind which she is a stranger to in her sober moments.
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'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, and makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile... 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, and hold in balance each contending state, To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, and answer her afflicted neighbours' prayer... Soon as her fleets appear their terrors cease.
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Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatever.
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Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
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The moral perfections of the Deity, the more attentively, we consider, the more perfectly still shall we know them.
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The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.
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If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
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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.
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There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.
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One would fancy that the zealots in atheism would be exempt from the single fault which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervor of religion. But so it is, that irreligion is propagated with as much fierceness and contention, wrath and indignation, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it.
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