Quotes By Joseph Addison

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

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

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

I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

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.

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.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.

The post of honour is a private station.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.

To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

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

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.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.