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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
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Milston
Wiltshire
Joseph Addisson
Right Hon. Joseph Addison
Force
Fables
Use
Discretion
Strong
Irresistible
Great
Talents
Men
Void
Like
Blind
Endued
Sight
Polyphemus
Talent
Fable

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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.
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I have often wondered that learning is not thought a proper ingredient in the education of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have the same improvable minds as the male part of their species.
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Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep fire out of the one, and frost out of the other.
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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.
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Antidotes are what you take to prevent dotes.
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Music can noble hints impart, Engender fury, kindle love, With unsuspected eloquence can move, And manage all the man with secret art.
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Waning moons their settled periods keep, to swell the billows and ferment the deep.
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Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.
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Among the several kinds of beauty, the eye takes most delight in colors.
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Physic is, for the most part, only a substitute for temperance and exercise.
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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.
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Poverty palls the most generous spirits it cows industry, and casts resolution itself into despair.
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There is nobody so weak of invention that cannot make some little stories to villify his enemy.
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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.
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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.
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Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.
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A brother's sufferings claim a brother's pity.
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An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.
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Quick sensitivity is inseperable from a ready understanding.
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I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.
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