Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.
Author
Joseph Addison
51 quotations
About Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison was a British writer and politician. He was the eldest son of Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine. His simple prose style marked the end of the mannerisms and conventional classical images of the 17th century. Addison is also famous for his play Cato, a Tragedy, written in 1712.
Read on Wikipedia → Find books by Joseph AddisonA woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.
The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.
If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.
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.
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The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.
Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.
Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the cr…
Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating th…
Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.
Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating th…
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the r…
The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.
Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before…