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There is sometimes a greater judgement shewn in deviating from the rules of art, than in adhering to them and?there ismore beauty inthe works of a great genius who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them.

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
Beauty
Adhering
Greater
Scrupulously
Art
Observes
Littles
Judgement
Little
Ignorant
Sometimes
Rules
Great
Works
Inthe
Genius
Deviating

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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Music, when thus applied, raises noble hints in the mind of the hearer, and fills it with great conceptions. It strengthens devotion, and advances praise into rapture.
Joseph Addison
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To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's attire this is the single excellence for to be what some people call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking.
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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How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created?
Joseph Addison
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Misery and ignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels.
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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Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.
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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A jealous man is very quick in his application: he knows how to find a double edge in an invective, and to draw a satire on himself out of a panegyrick on another.
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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Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.
Joseph Addison
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T is liberty crowns Britannia's Isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.
Joseph Addison
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What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.
Joseph Addison
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A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.
Joseph Addison
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Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.
Joseph Addison
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From hence, let fierce contending nations know, what dire effects from civil discord flow.
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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Adulterers, in the first stages of the church, were excommunicated forever, and unqualified all their lives for bearing a part in Christian assemblies, notwithstanding they might seek it with tears, and all the appearances of the most unfeigned repentance.
Joseph Addison
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The passion for praise, which is so very vehement in the fair sex, produces excellent effects in women of sense, who desire to be admired for that which only deserves admiration.
Joseph Addison
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Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.
Joseph Addison