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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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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
Species
Brute
Regard
Regards
Talent
Brutes
Makes
Preservation
Shows
Whereas
Reason
Immediately
Life
Instinct
Occurrences
Discovery
Continuance

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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Physic is, for the most part, only a substitute for temperance and exercise.
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.
Joseph Addison
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It is easier for an artful Man, who is not in Love, to persuade his Mistress he has a Passion for her, and to succeed in his Pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest Violence. True Love hath ten thousand Griefs, Impatiencies and Resentments, that render a Man unamiable in the Eyes of the Person whose Affection he sollicits.
Joseph Addison
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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.
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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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.
Joseph Addison
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There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, That drunkenness does not produce but discover faults. Common experience teaches the contrary. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses dualities into the mind which she is a stranger to in her sober moments.
Joseph Addison
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Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.
Joseph Addison
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It is indeed very possible, that the Persons we laugh at may in the main of their Characters be much wiser Men than our selves but if they would have us laugh at them, they must fall short of us in those Respects which stir up this Passion.
Joseph Addison
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A thousand trills and quivering sounds In airy circles o'er us fly, Till, wafted by a gentle breeze, They faint and languish by degrees, And at a distance die.
Joseph Addison
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My death and life, My bane and antidote, are both before me.
Joseph Addison
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A misery is not to be measure from the nature of the evil but from the temper of the sufferer.
Joseph Addison
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Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind's distinguishing perfection That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her And imitates her actions where she is not: It is not to be sported with.
Joseph Addison
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There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and satires that are written with wit and spirit are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable.
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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There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.
Joseph Addison
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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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Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison