Joseph Addison: Trending quotes

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“Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
While all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.”

Joseph Addison

No. 465, Ode (23 August 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? my Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.”

Joseph Addison

No. 117 (14 July 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“The friendships of the world are oft
Confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasure;
Ours has severest virtue for its basis,
And such a friendship ends not but with life.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act III, scene i.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

“Young men soon give and soon forget affronts;
Old age is slow in both.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act II, scene v.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

“We are always doing something for Posterity, but I would fain see Posterity do something for us.”

Joseph Addison

No. 587 (20 August 1714).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.”

Joseph Addison

Samuel Johnson in The Rambler, no. 50 (8 September 1750); many of Johnson's remarks have been attributed to Addison
Misattributed

“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.”

Joseph Addison

No. 1 (1 March 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us!”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act II, scene i.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

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

Joseph Addison

No. 1 (1 March 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act V, scene i.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

“For ever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.”

Joseph Addison

Ode.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“If there's a power above us,
(And that there is all nature cries aloud
Through all her works) he must delight in virtue.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act V, scene i.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

“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.”

Joseph Addison

No. 117.
The Guardian (1713)

“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.”

Joseph Addison

No. 93.
The Tatler (1711–1714)

“Talk not of love: thou never knew'st its force.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act III, scene ii.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

“Tis pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul:
I think the Romans call it Stoicism.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act I, scene iv.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

“Oh! think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods,
Oh! 'tis a dreadful interval of time,
Filled up with horror all, and big with death!”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act I, scene iii.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

“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.”

Joseph Addison

No. 225.
The Tatler (1711–1714)

“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.”

Joseph Addison

No. 215 (6 November 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals; or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.”

Joseph Addison

No. 166 (10 September 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)