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The Fashionable World is grown free and easie our Manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so modish as an agreeable Negligence. In a word, Good Breeding shows it self most, where to an ordinary Eye it appears the least.

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
World
Word
Breeding
Upon
Fashionable
Free
Loose
Eye
Appears
Shows
Manners
Nothing
Grown
Self
Ordinary
Negligence
Good
Least
Agreeable

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There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
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Contentment produces, in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire for them.
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It is indeed very possible, that the Persons we laugh at may in the main of their Characters be much wiser Men than our selves but if they would have us laugh at them, they must fall short of us in those Respects which stir up this Passion.
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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.
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Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
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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.
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The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.
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Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.
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There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, That drunkenness does not produce but discover faults. Common experience teaches the contrary. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses dualities into the mind which she is a stranger to in her sober moments.
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To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.
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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.
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Guard thy heart on this weak side, where most our nature fails.
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When I read the rules of criticism, I immediately inquire after the works of the author who has written them, and by that means discover what it is he likes in a composition.
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Should a writer single out and point his raillery at particular persons, or satirize the miserable, he might be sure of pleasing a great part of his readers, but must be a very ill man if he could please himself.
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The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature, that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment.
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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.
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A well regulated commerce is not, like law, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked with hands but, on the contrary, flourishes by multitudes, and gives employment to all its professors.
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There are no more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of Nature, find work for the poor, and wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great.
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Knavery is ever suspicious of knavery.
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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