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A man with great talents, but void of discretion, is like Polyphemus in the fable, strong and blind, endued with an irresistible force, which for want of sight is of no use to him.
Joseph Addison
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Joseph Addison
Age: 47 †
Born: 1672
Born: May 1
Died: 1719
Died: June 17
Editor
Essayist
Journalist
Librettist
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Writer
Milston
Wiltshire
Joseph Addisson
Right Hon. Joseph Addison
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Discretion
Strong
Irresistible
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Blind
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Polyphemus
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Fables
More quotes by Joseph Addison
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
Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.
Joseph Addison
A man whose extraordinary reputation thus lifts him up to the notice and observation of mankind, draws a multitude of eyes upon him, that will narrowly inspect every part of him.
Joseph Addison
Knavery is ever suspicious of knavery.
Joseph Addison
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
If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
Joseph Addison
Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.
Joseph Addison
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
Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.
Joseph Addison
Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency.
Joseph Addison
When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.
Joseph Addison
An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.
Joseph Addison
It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belongto his Neighbour.
Joseph Addison
We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are.
Joseph Addison
The Lord my pasture shall prepare, And feed me with a shepherd's care His presence shall my wants supply, And guard me with a watchful eye.
Joseph Addison
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
Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.
Joseph Addison
Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.
Joseph Addison
He only is a great man who can neglect the applause of the multitude and enjoy himself independent of its favor.
Joseph Addison
Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.
Joseph Addison