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
weed rocks myrtle
E'en the rough rocks with tender myrtle bloom, and trodden weeds send out a rich perfume.
crush fear men
What can that man fear who takes care to please a Being that is able to crush all his adversaries?
party passion men
The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul, rise in the pursuit.
office together magnificence
There are no more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of Nature, find work for the poor, and wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great.
thinking would-be conversation
One would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged, the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started into discourse; but, instead of this we find that conversation is never so much straightened and confined, as in numerous assemblies.
men satisfaction infirmity
Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacence, if they discover none of the like in themselves.
notorious spleen converting
It is pleasant to see a notorious profligate seized with a concern for religion, and converting his spleen into zeal.
offending bravery uniforms
That courage which arises 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.
complacency equal acceptable
Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable.
government care riches
The care of our national commerce redounds more to the riches and prosperity of the public than any other act of government.
men purpose pennies
Our Grub-street biographers watch for the death of a great man like so many undertakers on purpose to make a penny of him.
men degrees elegance
The lives of great men cannot be writ with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness within a short time after their decease.
contempt
Nothing, says Longinus, can be great, the contempt of which is great.
christian art dark
It happened very providentially, to the honor of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height.