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Cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.

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
Manner
Pass
Vivacity
Weak
Mimic
Wisdom
Discretion
Upon
Cunning
Often
Mistaken
May
Gravity
Men
Wit

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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.
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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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We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are.
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Knavery is ever suspicious of knavery.
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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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The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.
Joseph Addison
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Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.
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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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.
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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My voice is still for war.
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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Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world, and ignorance of mankind.
Joseph Addison
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The statue lies hid in a block of marble and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish.
Joseph Addison
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We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion.
Joseph Addison
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The spacious firmament on high, And all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim.
Joseph Addison
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Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses.
Joseph Addison
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Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.
Joseph Addison
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I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.
Joseph Addison
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Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: the first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for mine enemies.
Joseph Addison