Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Never
Subjects
Numerous
Would
Thoughts
Assembly
Think
Instead
Confined
Thinking
Started
Discourse
Company
Larger
Greater
Engaged
Find
Variety
Assemblies
Much
Conversation
Straightened

More quotes by Joseph Addison

Image
When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
Joseph Addison
Image
A misery is not to be measure from the nature of the evil but from the temper of the sufferer.
Joseph Addison
Image
The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure.
Joseph Addison
Image
Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.
Joseph Addison
Image
To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.
Joseph Addison
Image
Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.
Joseph Addison
Image
Antidotes are what you take to prevent dotes.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.
Joseph Addison
Image
If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.
Joseph Addison
Image
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
Joseph Addison
Image
Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency.
Joseph Addison
Image
It was a saying of an ancient philosopher, which I find some of our writers have ascribed to Queen Elizabeth, who perhaps might have taken occasion to repeat it, that a good face is a letter of recommendation.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
Contentment produces, in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire for them.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I have often reflected within myself on this unaccountable humor in womankind of being smitten with everything that is showy and superficial, and on the numberless evils that befall the sex from this light fantastical disposition.
Joseph Addison
Image
The ways of heaven are dark and intricate, Puzzled in mazes, and perplex'd with errors Our understanding traces them in vain, Lost and bewilder'd in the fruitless search Nor sees with how much art the windings run, Nor where the regular confusion ends.
Joseph Addison
Image
An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.
Joseph Addison