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The lives of great men cannot be writ with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness within a short time after their decease.

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
Cannot
Writ
Great
Tolerable
Men
Elegance
Time
Degree
Degrees
Short
Within
Decease
Lives
Exactness

More quotes by 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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A misery is not to be measure from the nature of the evil but from the temper of the sufferer.
Joseph Addison
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Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
Joseph Addison
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What I spent I lost what I possessed is left to others what I gave away remains with me.
Joseph Addison
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By anticipation we sugar misery and enjoy happiness before they are in being. We can set the sun and stars forward, or lose sight of them by wandering into those retired parts of eternity when the heavens and earth shall be no more.
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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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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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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One would fancy that the zealots in atheism would be exempt from the single fault which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervor of religion. But so it is, that irreligion is propagated with as much fierceness and contention, wrath and indignation, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it.
Joseph Addison
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An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.
Joseph Addison
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The Fear of Death often proves Mortal.
Joseph Addison
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Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
Joseph Addison
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In private conversation between intimate friends, the wisest men very often talk like the weakest : for indeed the talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.
Joseph Addison
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Let freedom never perish in your hands.
Joseph Addison
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Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.
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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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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Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.
Joseph Addison
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When a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.
Joseph Addison
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I always rejoice when I see a tribunal filled with a man of an upright and inflexible temper, who in the execution of his country's laws can overcome all private fear, resentment, solicitation, and even pity itself.
Joseph Addison