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
country thinking secret
If I can in any way contribute to the Diversion or Improvement of the Country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret Satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain.
men offending soul
Courage that grows from constitution very often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it, and when it is only a kind of instinct in the Soul breaks out on all occasions without judgment or discretion. That courage which proceeds from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us, acts always in a uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason.
success perseverance guardian-angel
If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend.
bible song passion
There is no passion that is not finely expressed in those parts of the inspired writings which are proper for divine songs and anthems.
hero battle troops
Troops of heroes undistinguished die.
authorship materials
Peaceable times are the best to live in, though not so proper to furnish materials for a writer.
ocean noble immense
I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up.
atheism kind infinite
Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.
wrath safety atheism
One would fancy that the zealots in atheism would be exempt from the single fault which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervor of religion. But so it is, that irreligion is propagated with as much fierceness and contention, wrath and indignation, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it.
art design amity
There is a great amity between designing and art.
art race people
The first race of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rule of art.
evil anxiety pressure
Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.
imperfection
The moderns cannot reach their beauties, but can avoid their imperfections.
honor ancestry merit
In the founders of great families, titles or attributes of honor are generally correspondent with the virtues of the person to whom they are applied; but in their descendants they are too often the marks rather of grandeur than of merit. The stamp and denomination still continue, but the intrinsic value is frequently lost.