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Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.

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
Uselessly
Purpose
Nature
Doe
Without
Nothing

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.
Joseph Addison
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As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.
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.
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Quick sensitivity is inseperable from a ready understanding.
Joseph Addison
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What can that man fear who takes care to please a Being that is able to crush all his adversaries?
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How is it possible for those who are men of honor in their persons, thus to become notorious liars in their party
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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Mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity the gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.
Joseph Addison
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Let echo, too, perform her part, Prolonging every note with art And in a low expiring strain, Play all the comfort o'er again.
Joseph Addison
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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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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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The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.
Joseph Addison
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Nature in her whole drama never drew such a part she has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making.
Joseph Addison
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Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties, and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul.
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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Music is the only sensual gratification which mankind may indulge in to excess without injury to their moral or religious feelings.
Joseph Addison
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There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
Joseph Addison
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Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us, we see the worst side of ourselves.
Joseph Addison
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It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.
Joseph Addison
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Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
Joseph Addison