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
4th-of-july hands happy-independence-day
Let freedom never perish in your hands.
beauty absence nature-beauty
Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.
inspirational exercise soul
Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.
laughter men mirth
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
book generations genius
Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
humility pride men
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.
real eye men
Nothing that isn't a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.
life happiness men
The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.
literature ornaments modesty
Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.
reading space empty
Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.
literature honour stations
The post of honour is a private station.
reading book exercise
Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.
strength faith practice
Faith is kept alive in us, and gathers strength, more from practice than from speculations.
men honor bears
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.