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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
Wisdom
Discretion
Upon
Cunning
Often
Mistaken
May
Gravity
Men
Wit
Manner
Pass
Vivacity
Weak
Mimic
More quotes by Joseph Addison
Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them.
Joseph Addison
I never knew a critic who made it his business to lash the faults of other writers that was not guilty of greater himself--as the hangman is generally a worse malefactor than the criminal that suffers by his hand.
Joseph Addison
Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.
Joseph Addison
Among the English authors, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others. That noble extravagance of fancy, which he had in so great perfection, thoroughly qualified him to touch the weak, superstitious part of his readers' imagination, and made him capable of succeeding where he had nothing to support him besides the strength of his own genius.
Joseph Addison
Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.
Joseph Addison
Waning moons their settled periods keep, to swell the billows and ferment the deep.
Joseph Addison
What can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being?
Joseph Addison
When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions.
Joseph Addison
O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not! The best may err, but you are good.
Joseph Addison
Knavery is ever suspicious of knavery.
Joseph Addison
Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.
Joseph Addison
The Fashionable World is grown free and easie our Manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so modish as an agreeable Negligence. In a word, Good Breeding shows it self most, where to an ordinary Eye it appears the least.
Joseph Addison
Guard thy heart on this weak side, where most our nature fails.
Joseph Addison
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
Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species.
Joseph Addison
There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning.
Joseph Addison
Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatever.
Joseph Addison
A brother's sufferings claim a brother's pity.
Joseph Addison
The first race of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rule of art.
Joseph Addison
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
