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
agreeable air amiable beauty certain conversation gives good nature
Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty
art women soul-beauty
Loveliest of women! heaven is in thy soul, Beauty and virtue shine forever round thee, Bright'ning each other! thou art all divine!
beauty beautiful eye
Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
beauty discovery joy
The very first discovery of beauty strikes the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties.
beauty absence nature-beauty
Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.
inspirational beauty soul
There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.
creatures perverse
These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world.
consider figure man pray republic
Pray consider what a figure a man would make in the republic of letters.
becomes extricate mind till unable water
Our disputants put me in mind of the scuttle fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him, till he becomes invisible.
blue firmament great original shining
The spacious firmament on high, / And all the blue ethereal sky, / And spangled heavens, a shining frame, / Their great Original proclaim.
conversation himself less man method provided requisite talk understood
Method is not less requisite in conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood
both happiness happy love marriage pleasures scene
Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness and of our miseries. A marriage of love is pleasant, of interest, easy, and where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and,
enemy happiness noise retired true
True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise
dividing doubling friendship friends-or-friendship improves
Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.