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When I read the rules of criticism, I immediately inquire after the works of the author who has written them, and by that means discover what it is he likes in a composition.

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
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Writer
Milston
Wiltshire
Joseph Addisson
Right Hon. Joseph Addison
Criticism
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Inquire
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Immediately
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More quotes by Joseph Addison

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The Lord my pasture shall prepare, And feed me with a shepherd's care His presence shall my wants supply, And guard me with a watchful eye.
Joseph Addison
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The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life... Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.
Joseph Addison
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Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador.
Joseph Addison
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Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.
Joseph Addison
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It is indeed very possible, that the Persons we laugh at may in the main of their Characters be much wiser Men than our selves but if they would have us laugh at them, they must fall short of us in those Respects which stir up this Passion.
Joseph Addison
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See in what peace a Christian can die.
Joseph Addison
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Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.
Joseph Addison
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The world is so full of ill-nature that I have lampoons sent me by people who cannot spell, and satires composed by those who scarce know how to write.
Joseph Addison
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A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.
Joseph Addison
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A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms.
Joseph Addison
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It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.
Joseph Addison
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It happened very providentially, to the honor of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height.
Joseph Addison
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Beauty commonly produces love, but cleanliness preserves it. Age itself is not unamiable while it is preserved clean and unsullied like a piece of metal constantly kept smooth and bright, we look on it with more pleasure than on a new vessel cankered with rust.
Joseph Addison
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Let freedom never perish in your hands.
Joseph Addison
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Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.
Joseph Addison
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Learning, like traveling and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more insufferable by supplying variety of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in absurdities.
Joseph Addison
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Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.
Joseph Addison
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Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.
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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To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge,--carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man.
Joseph Addison