Quote

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.

Joseph Addison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Ostentation
Make
Mankind
Disposition
Dispositions
World
Takes
Wit
Either
Secrets
Esteemed
Secret
Ill
Converse
Desire
Vanity
Gratifying
Thought
Generally
Converses
Persons
Rise
Scandal
Mind
Private
Inclination

More quotes by Joseph Addison

Image
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
Image
Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.
Joseph Addison
Image
Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning.
Joseph Addison
Image
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
Image
Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness and miseries. A marriage of love is pleasant a marriage of interest, easy and a marriage where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and, indeed, all the sweets of life.
Joseph Addison
Image
That fine part of our construction, the eye, seems as much the receptacle and seat of our passions as the mind itself and at least it is the outward portal to introduce them to the house within, or rather the common thoroughfare to let our affections pass in and out.
Joseph Addison
Image
Instability of temper ought to be checked when it disposes men to wander from one scheme to another: since such a fickleness cannot but be attended with fatal consequences.
Joseph Addison
Image
Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.
Joseph Addison
Image
Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.
Joseph Addison
Image
We find the Works of Nature still more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art.
Joseph Addison
Image
If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend.
Joseph Addison
Image
Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.
Joseph Addison
Image
Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.
Joseph Addison
Image
To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge,--carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man.
Joseph Addison
Image
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.
Joseph Addison
Image
The great number of the Jews furnishes us with a sufficient cloud of witnesses that attest the truth of the Bible.
Joseph Addison
Image
There is not a more pleasante exercise of the mind than gratitude.
Joseph Addison
Image
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