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

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind
Joseph Addison
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'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, and makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile... 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, and hold in balance each contending state, To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, and answer her afflicted neighbours' prayer... Soon as her fleets appear their terrors cease.
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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One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.
Joseph Addison
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There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society.
Joseph Addison
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It is certain that there is no other passion which does produce such contrary effects in so great a degree. But this may be said for love, that if you strike it out of the soul, life would be insipid, and our being but half animated.
Joseph Addison
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What can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being?
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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The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature, that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment.
Joseph Addison
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There is noting truly valuable which can be purchased without pains and labor. The gods have set a price upon every real and noble pleasure.
Joseph Addison
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A great large book is a great evil.
Joseph Addison
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I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves and useful to the world.
Joseph Addison
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It is folly to seek the approbation of any being besides the Supreme.
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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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
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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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There is no passion that steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride.
Joseph Addison
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The most exquisite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning and they are those which a sour undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence.
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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One would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged, the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started into discourse but, instead of this we find that conversation is never so much straightened and confined, as in numerous assemblies.
Joseph Addison