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Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacence, if they discover none of the like in themselves.

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
Great
Men
Infirmities
Like
Infirmity
Proclaim
Discover
Satisfaction
None
Others

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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.
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An opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratify the senses and keep up an indolent attention in the audience.
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When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.
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There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.
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Beauty commonly produces love, but cleanliness preserves it. Age itself is not unamiable while it is preserved clean and unsullied like a piece of metal constantly kept smooth and bright, we look on it with more pleasure than on a new vessel cankered with rust.
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Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eyebrow call a man a scoundrel.
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Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.
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Is it not wonderful, that the love of the parent should be so violent while it lasts and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young?
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Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species.
Joseph Addison
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Fame is a good so wholly foreign to our natures that we have no faculty in the soul adapted to it, nor any organ in the body to relish it an object of desire placed out of the possibility of fruition.
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But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.
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Instability of temper ought to be checked when it disposes men to wander from one scheme to another: since such a fickleness cannot but be attended with fatal consequences.
Joseph Addison
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Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.
Joseph Addison
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To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.
Joseph Addison
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The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.
Joseph Addison
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A solid and substantial greatness of soul looks down with neglect on the censures and applauses of the multitude.
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An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.
Joseph Addison
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Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.
Joseph Addison
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For my own part, I am apt to join in the opinion with those who believe that all the regions of Nature swarm with spirits, and that we have multitudes of spectators on all our actions when we think ourselves most alone.
Joseph Addison
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All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter
Joseph Addison