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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

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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
Often
Reflected
Light
Evils
Womankind
Everything
Disposition
Unaccountable
Superficial
Numberless
Sex
Fantastical
Humor
Showy
Within
Smitten
Evil
Befall

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Cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.
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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.
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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.
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The English Writers of Tragedy are possessed with a Notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent Person in Distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his Troubles, or made him triumph over his Enemies.
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The time never lies heavy upon him it is impossible for him to be alone.
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Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.
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The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.
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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.
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I have but nine-pence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds.
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With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our own souls, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such inexhaustible sources of perfection. We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart to conceive the glory that will be always in reserve for it.
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Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.
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Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.
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There is no passion that is not finely expressed in those parts of the inspired writings which are proper for divine songs and anthems.
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The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well written play, where the principal persons still act in character, whatever the fate in which they undergo.
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We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion.
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A man governs himself by the dictates of virtue and good sense, who acts without zeal or passion in points that are of no consequence but when the whole community is shaken, and the safety of the public endangered, the appearance of a philosophical or an affected indolence must arise either from stupidity or perfidiousness.
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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.
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A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.
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A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.
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Great souls by instinct to each other turn, demand alliance, and in friendship burn.
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