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
trying pieces may
The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.
mind may cleanliness
Cleanliness may be defined to be the emblem of purity of mind.
christian may dies
I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian may die.
men may weak
Though a man cannot abstain from being weak, he may from being vicious.
men idols may
An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage, in particular, is a kind of counter apotheosis, as a deification inverted. When a man becomes familiar with his goddess she quickly sinks into a woman.
eye may owners
The greatest parts, without discretion as observed by an elegant writer, may be fatal to their owner; as Polyphemus, deprived of his eyes, was only the more exposed on account of his enormous strength and stature.
rely-upon expectations may
We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are.
eye heart may
The intelligence of affection is carried on by the eye only; good-breeding has made the tongue falsify the heart, and act a part of continued restraint, while nature has preserved the eyes to herself, that she may not be disguised or misrepresented.
may action notoriety
Even the greatest actions of a celebrated person labor under this disadvantage, that however surprising and extraordinary they may be, they are no more than what are expected from him.
memories animal may
The memory is perpetually looking back when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those repositories in animals that are filled with food, on which they may ruminate when their present pastures fail.
world may morality
A person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith than by faith without morality.
men weak-man may
Cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.
men world may
One may know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding.
creatures perverse
These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world.