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There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society.

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
Another
Defective
Order
Excel
Make
Providence
Men
Useful
Shall
Economy
Sort
Society

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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Most of the trades, professions, and ways of living among mankind, take their original either from the love of the pleasure, or the fear of want. The former, when it becomes too violent, degenerates into luxury, and the latter into avarice.
Joseph Addison
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Among the English authors, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others. That noble extravagance of fancy, which he had in so great perfection, thoroughly qualified him to touch the weak, superstitious part of his readers' imagination, and made him capable of succeeding where he had nothing to support him besides the strength of his own genius.
Joseph Addison
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There is sometimes a greater judgement shewn in deviating from the rules of art, than in adhering to them and?there ismore beauty inthe works of a great genius who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them.
Joseph Addison
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There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance
Joseph Addison
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The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.
Joseph Addison
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It is certain that there is no other passion which does produce such contrary effects in so great a degree. But this may be said for love, that if you strike it out of the soul, life would be insipid, and our being but half animated.
Joseph Addison
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Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them.
Joseph Addison
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Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.
Joseph Addison
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A brother's sufferings claim a brother's pity.
Joseph Addison
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Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.
Joseph Addison
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Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.
Joseph Addison
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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.
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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Music religious heat inspires, It wakes the soul, and lifts it high, And wings it with sublime desires, And fits it to bespeak the Deity.
Joseph Addison
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Women were formed to temper Mankind, and sooth them into Tenderness and Compassion not to set an Edge upon their Minds, and blowup in them those Passions which are too apt to rise of their own Accord.
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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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.
Joseph Addison
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To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's attire this is the single excellence for to be what some people call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking.
Joseph Addison