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
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
happiness success men
To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.
happiness enemy literature
Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.
happiness distance lying
Men of warm imaginations and towering thoughts are apt to overlook the goods of fortune which are near them, for something that glitters in the sight at a distance; to neglect solid and substantial happiness for what is showy and superficial; and to contemn that good which lies within their reach, for that which they are not capable of attaining. Hope calculates its schemes for a long and durable life; presses forward to imaginary points of bliss; grasps at impossibilities; and consequently very often ensnares men into beggary, ruin, and dishonour.
action fame ultimate-happiness
Many actions calculated to procure fame are not conducive to ultimate happiness.
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.
happiness men feelings
If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.
happiness self talking
True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.
happiness patience pain
Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.
happiness inspiration health
Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
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.