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Whilst I yet live, let me not live in vain.

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
Whilst
Vain
Live

More quotes by Joseph Addison

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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.
Joseph Addison
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Women were formed to temper Mankind, and sooth them into Tenderness and Compassion not to set an Edge upon their Minds, and blowup in them those Passions which are too apt to rise of their own Accord.
Joseph Addison
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I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.
Joseph Addison
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There is nobody so weak of invention that cannot make some little stories to villify his enemy.
Joseph Addison
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Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.
Joseph Addison
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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.
Joseph Addison
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There is nothing in which men more deceive themselves than in what they call zeal.
Joseph Addison
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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.
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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Heaven is not to be looked upon only as the reward, but the natural effect, of a religious life.
Joseph Addison
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Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.
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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Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.
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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There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.
Joseph Addison
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Talk not of love: thou never knew'st its force.
Joseph Addison
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Every one knows the veneration which was paid by the Jews to a name so great, wonderful, and holy. They would not let it enter even into their religious discourses. What can we then think of those who make use of so tremendous a name, in the ordinary expression of their anger, mirth, and most impertinent passions?
Joseph Addison
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The most exquisite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning and they are those which a sour undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence.
Joseph Addison
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The passion for praise, which is so very vehement in the fair sex, produces excellent effects in women of sense, who desire to be admired for that which only deserves admiration.
Joseph Addison
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There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
Joseph Addison