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
men self space
I... recommend to every one of my Readers, the keeping a Journal of their Lives for one Week, and setting down punctually their whole Series of Employments during that Space of Time. This kind of Self-Examination would give them a true State of themselves, and incline them to consider seriously what they are about. One Day would rectifie the Omissions of another, and make a Man weigh all those indifferent Actions, which, though they are easily forgotten, must certainly be accounted for.
ignorance self prejudice
Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world, and ignorance of mankind.
eye self world
The Fashionable World is grown free and easie; our Manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so modish as an agreeable Negligence. In a word, Good Breeding shows it self most, where to an ordinary Eye it appears the least.
distance selfish eye
Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.
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.
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.
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.