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Government mitigates the inequality of power, and makes an innocent man, though of the lowest rank, a match for the mightiest of his fellow-subjects.

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
Makes
Lowest
Power
Inequality
Government
Match
Men
Fellow
Fellows
Innocent
Mitigates
Subjects
Mightiest
Though
Rank

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Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.
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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 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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Talk not of love: thou never knew'st its force.
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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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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
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Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency.
Joseph Addison
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The lives of great men cannot be writ with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness within a short time after their decease.
Joseph Addison
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The first race of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rule of art.
Joseph Addison
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Mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity the gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.
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For my own part, I am apt to join in the opinion with those who believe that all the regions of Nature swarm with spirits, and that we have multitudes of spectators on all our actions when we think ourselves most alone.
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Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.
Joseph Addison
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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
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A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms.
Joseph Addison
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I should think myself a very bad woman, if I had done what I do for a farthing less.
Joseph Addison
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Heaven is not to be looked upon only as the reward, but the natural effect, of a religious life.
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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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
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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
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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