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
attacking generally good human laugh men ridicule virtue
Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.
english-writer good greatest heaven mortals
Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have here below.
good greatest heaven mortals
Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below.
against country earthquake good island pills remember sold
I remember when our whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, there was an impudent mountebank who sold pills which (as he told the country people) were very good against an earthquake.
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
men good-man ancestry
Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.
men good-nature good-humor
Men naturally warm and heady are transported with the greatest flush of good-nature.
advice literature good-advice
There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
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,