Joseph Addison

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants, and how much more unhappy he might be than he really is.

There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man’s reputation. Lampoons and satires, that are written with wit and spirit, are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable.

Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments.

The talent of turning men into ridicule, and exposing to laughter those one converses with, is the qualification of little ungenerous tempers.

There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness.

There is no land of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of Punning.

An opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratify the senses and keep up an indolent attention in the audience.

Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men.

Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady’s headdress: within my own memory I have known it rise and fall above thirty degrees.

I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as an habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word Good-Breeding.

Life is not long enough for a coquette to play all her tricks in.

If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

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.

Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy that are preceded by a long courtship. The passion should strike root and gather strength before marriage be grafted on it.

Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.

Colors speak all languages.

Is it not wonderful, that the love of the [animal] parent should be so violent while it lasts and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young?

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

Our delight in any particular study, art or science rises in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

True happiness... arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give those fruit for their songs.

Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.

One's religion is whatever he is most interested in, and yours is Success.

Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.

The Fear of Death often proves Mortal, and sets People on Methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.

Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.