Joseph Addison

"To my confusion, and eternal grief, I must approve the sentence that destroys me."

"See they suffer death, But in their deaths remember they are men, Strain not the laws to make their tortures grievous."

"Why wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer Imaginary ills, and fancy'd tortures?"

"When love once pleas admission to our hearts, (In spite of all the virtue we can boast), The woman that deliberates is lost."

"I will indulge my sorrows, and give way To all the pangs and fury of despair."

"Curse on his virtues! they've undone his country."

"How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue! Who would not be that youth? What pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country!"

"Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a private station."

"O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not! The best may err, but you are good."

"Thanks to the gods! my boy has done his duty."

"The honors of this world, what are they But puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?"

"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 crush of worlds."

"Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week."

"It must be so — Plato, thou reasonest well! Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, O falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man."

"Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!"

"I'm weary of conjectures,—this must end 'em. Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life, My bane and antidote, are both before me: This in a moment brings me to an end; But this informs me I shall never die. The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. 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 war of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds."

"Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly."

"The ideal man bears the accidents of life With dignity and grace, the best of circumstances."

"The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point."

"What means this heaviness that hangs upon me? This lethargy that creeps through all my senses? Nature, oppress'd and harrass'd out with care, Sinks down to rest."

"Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man."

"From hence, let fierce contending nations know, What dire effects from civil discord flow."

"There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice."

"To be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man."

"Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind."

"Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another."

"When I read the rules of criticism, I immediately inquire after the works of the author who has written them, and by that means discover what it is he likes in a composition."

"Courage that grows from constitution very often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it, and when it is only a kind of instinct in the Soul breaks out on all occasions without judgment or discretion. That courage which proceeds from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us, acts always in a uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason."

"Blessings may appear under the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let him have patience, and he will see them in their proper figures."

"A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves a constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can possibly befall us."

"The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education."

"Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands."

"Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence, of this virtue."

"If I can any way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain."

"Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species."

"To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude."

"I would... earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as a part of the tea equipage."

"I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality."

"True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it 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."

"That nothing is capable of being well set to Musick, that is not Nonsense."

"The Fear of Death often proves Mortal, and sets People on Methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them."

"It is indeed very possible, that the Persons we laugh at may in the main of their Characters be much wiser Men than our selves; but if they would have us laugh at them, they must fall short of us in those Respects which stir up this Passion."

"In all thy humours, 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."

"There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol."

"A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts."

"Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors."

"There is not so variable a thing in Nature as a lady's head-dress."

""Censure," says a late ingenious author, "is the tax a man plays for being eminent." It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defense against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of comitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph."

"If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportunity of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it. It is therefore the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions."

"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."