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
sex light evil
I have often reflected within myself on this unaccountable humor in womankind of being smitten with everything that is showy and superficial, and on the numberless evils that befall the sex from this light fantastical disposition.
lying doe enthusiasm
Devotion, when it does not lie under the check of reason, is apt to degenerate into enthusiasm.
men connections odd
It is odd to consider the connection between despotism and barbarity, and how the making one person more than man makes the rest less.
humanity pity incitement
Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatever.
distance selfish eye
Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.
men want violence
The most exquisite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning; and they are those which a sour undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence.
hands suffering faults
I never knew a critic who made it his business to lash the faults of other writers that was not guilty of greater himself--as the hangman is generally a worse malefactor than the criminal that suffers by his hand.
art eye hair
Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.
real grief loss
In the loss of an object we do not proportion our grief to the real value it bears, but to the value our fancies set upon it.
fear men evil
Were a man's sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life, it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him than from those evils which had really befallen him.
eye drawing forever
It must be a prospect pleasing to God Himself to see His creation forever beautifying in His eyes, and drawing nearer Him by greater degrees of resemblance.
beautiful appearance figures
The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure.
hate men enemy
Plutarch says very finely that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies.
hair glory
The ungrown glories of his beamy hair.