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Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.

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
Eternity
Stir
Weight
Threw
Balance
Affliction
Poverty
Scales
Wealth
Opposite
Though
Opposites
Ponderous
Upon
Prosperity
Inscribed
Able
Seemed
Laying

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A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.
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O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not! The best may err, but you are good.
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Oh, Liberty! thou goddess heavenly bright! Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight! Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign, And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train.
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I have but nine-pence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds.
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Good Nature, and Evenness of Temper, will give you an easie Companion for Life Vertue and good Sense, an agreeable Friend Love and Constancy, a good Wife or Husband. Where we meet one Person with all these Accomplishments, we find an Hundred without any one of them.
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A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections
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The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.
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It generally takes its rise either from an ill-will to mankind, a private inclination to make ourselves esteemed, an ostentation of wit, and vanity of being thought in the secrets of the world or from a desire of gratifying any of these dispositions of mind in those persons with whom we converse.
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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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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.
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There is no passion that steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride.
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It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.
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It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belongto his Neighbour.
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A jealous man is very quick in his application: he knows how to find a double edge in an invective, and to draw a satire on himself out of a panegyrick on another.
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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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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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The greatest parts, without discretion as observed by an elegant writer, may be fatal to their owner as Polyphemus, deprived of his eyes, was only the more exposed on account of his enormous strength and stature.
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Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us, we see the worst side of ourselves.
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An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.
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The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.
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