Joseph Addison

Writer

1672-05-01

Books by Joseph Addison

Cato
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The evidences of the Christian religion
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Essays
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Quotes by Joseph Addison

If you wish success in life, make perseverance you bosom friend, experience your wise councellor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
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We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would no end of them.- On the Right Use of Time
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If you wish success in life, make perseverance you bosom friend, experience your wise councellor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
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We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would no end of them.- On the Right Use of Time
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Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.
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To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.
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What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
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Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.
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I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.
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Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
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Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
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True happiness 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.
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Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
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The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.
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Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
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Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!
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Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.
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The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.
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To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.
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There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
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