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
wise men vanity
I Have often thought if the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool. There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both. The great difference is, that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by suppressing some, and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words.
wine men vanity
Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.
ill-will vanity secret
It generally takes its rise either from an ill-will to mankind, a private inclination to make ourselves esteemed, an ostentation of wit, and vanity of being thought in the secrets of the world; or from a desire of gratifying any of these dispositions of mind in those persons with whom we converse.
character men vanity
Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it.
grave living mirth nor pleasant thee thy whether wit
In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, there is no living with thee, nor without thee
angry consider far feeling less men
If men would consider not so much where they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world
desire fond longing pleasing thou
It must be so - Plato, thou reason'st well! -/ Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, / This longing after immortality?
business requisite
There is nothing more requisite in business than dispatch.
block education english-writer human sculpture
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.
block education human sculpture
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.
apt glory incurable men vices
No vices are so incurable as those which men are apt to glory in
consider figure man pray republic
Pray consider what a figure a man would make in the republic of letters.
age age-and-aging forget people slow soon
Young people soon give, and forget insults, but old age is slow in both.
creatures perverse
These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world.