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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

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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
Conversation
Straightened
Much
Subjects
Numerous
Never
Thoughts
Assembly
Would
Instead
Confined
Think
Started
Discourse
Thinking
Company
Larger
Greater
Engaged
Variety
Assemblies
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More quotes by Joseph Addison

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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
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Virtue which shuns, the day.
Joseph Addison
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When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? My Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions or rather I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.
Joseph Addison
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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
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I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up.
Joseph Addison
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The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.
Joseph Addison
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The statue lies hid in a block of marble and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish.
Joseph Addison
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I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.
Joseph Addison
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The world is so full of ill-nature that I have lampoons sent me by people who cannot spell, and satires composed by those who scarce know how to write.
Joseph Addison
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Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
Joseph Addison
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Sir Francis Bacon observed that a well-written book, compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses' serpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured those of the Egyptians.
Joseph Addison
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Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.
Joseph Addison
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Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world, and ignorance of mankind.
Joseph Addison
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In my Lucia's absence Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear, And grief, and rage and love rise up at once, And with variety of pain distract me.
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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Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.
Joseph Addison
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To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.
Joseph Addison
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Knavery is ever suspicious of knavery.
Joseph Addison
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There is no greater sign of a bad cause, than when the patrons of it are reduced to the necessity of making use of the most wicked artifices to support it.
Joseph Addison
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Let echo, too, perform her part, Prolonging every note with art And in a low expiring strain, Play all the comfort o'er again.
Joseph Addison