Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addisonwas an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth1 May 1672
religious religion facts
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.
fashion nature literature
There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
nature literature weakness
Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
friendship friends wonder
Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.
happiness enemy literature
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.
men umpires literature
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.
marriage wedding women
A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.
fathers-day men mean-people
That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
conceited men talking
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
country integrity patriotic
Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!
passion admiration-and-respect decay
Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.
break-through clouds serenity
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.
wisdom lying son
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.
literature prophet prove
Jesters do often prove prophets.