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I would have every zealous man examine his heart thoroughly, and I believe he will often find that what be calls a zeal for his religion is either pride, interest, or ill-repute.

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
Heart
Calls
Every
Ill
Believe
Pride
Would
Either
Repute
Men
Interest
Zealous
Religion
Examine
Often
Zeal
Find
Thoroughly

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I never knew a critic who made it his business to lash the faults of other writers that was not guilty of greater himself--as the hangman is generally a worse malefactor than the criminal that suffers by his hand.
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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.
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It is odd to consider the connection between despotism and barbarity, and how the making one person more than man makes the rest less.
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Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.
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If our zeal were true and genuine we should be much more angry with a sinner than a heretic.
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Artificial intelligence will never be a match for natural stupidity.
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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.
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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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Beauty commonly produces love, but cleanliness preserves it. Age itself is not unamiable while it is preserved clean and unsullied like a piece of metal constantly kept smooth and bright, we look on it with more pleasure than on a new vessel cankered with rust.
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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.
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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.
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The Gods in bounty work up storms about us, that give mankind occasion to exert their hidden strength, and throw our into practice virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calms of life.
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Misery and ignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels.
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Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.
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Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.
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Virtue which shuns, the day.
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Waning moons their settled periods keep, to swell the billows and ferment the deep.
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A satire should expose nothing but what is corrigible, and should make a due discrimination between those that are and those that are not the proper objects of it.
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Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.
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Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
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