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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.

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
Believe
Join
Think
Actions
Thinking
Opinion
Swarm
Alone
Swarms
Action
Spectators
Spirit
Multitudes
Nature
Spirits
Part
Regions

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world, and ignorance of mankind.
Joseph Addison
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The moral perfections of the Deity, the more attentively, we consider, the more perfectly still shall we know them.
Joseph Addison
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Nothing lies on our hands with such uneasiness as time. Wretched and thoughtless creatures! In the only place where covetousness were a virtue we turn prodigals.
Joseph Addison
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To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.
Joseph Addison
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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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Nothing that isn't a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.
Joseph Addison
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I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves and useful to the world.
Joseph Addison
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A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.
Joseph Addison
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The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out of a proper method to catch the reader's eye without which, a good thing may pass over unobserved, or lost among commissions of bankrupt.
Joseph Addison
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Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.
Joseph Addison
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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
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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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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
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What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.
Joseph Addison
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That courage which arises from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us, acts always in a uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason.
Joseph Addison
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Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatever.
Joseph Addison
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We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion.
Joseph Addison
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The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education.
Joseph Addison
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When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions.
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