Joseph Addison Quotes (226 quotes, page 3)

“The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.”

Joseph Addison

William Temple, in "Heads Designed for an Essay on Conversation" in The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart. in Four Volumes (1757), Vol. III, p. 547.
Misattributed

Truth , Nature , Sense

“A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

“Thy steady temper, Portius,
Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar,
In the calm lights of mild philosophy.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

Fraud , Light

“What though no real voice nor sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found;
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
"The Hand that made us divine."”

Joseph Addison

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

Singing

“Health and cheerfulness mutually beget each other.”

Joseph Addison

No. 387 (24 May 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Health

“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)

Truth , Star , Birth

“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)

Men , Age , Forgetting

“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

Life , Parting

“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)

Secret , Way , Thinking , Country

“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)

“Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

Nature

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

Joseph Addison

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

Singing

“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)

Fear , Soul , Courage , Sense

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

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

Love

“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)

Soul , Thinking

“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)

Death , Birth , Thinking , Time

“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)

Wisdom , Men

“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)

Graduation , Teachers' Day , Education , Soul

“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)

“When love's well-timed 'tis not a fault of love;
The strong, the brave, the virtuous, and the wise,
Sink in the soft captivity together.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

Love , Strong , Time

“What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.”

Joseph Addison

No. 249 (15 December 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Parting

“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.”

Joseph Addison

Widely quoted as an Addison maxim this is actually by the American clergyman George Washington Burnap (1802-1859), published in Burnap's The Sphere and Duties of Woman : A Course of Lectures (1848), Lecture IV.
Misattributed

Happy , Hope , Love , Life

“The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, the important day,
Big with the fate Of Cato, and of Rome.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

Fate

“Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

Success

“The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.”

Joseph Addison

" The Life and Teachings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus http://magdelene.net/Thoth%20Hermes%20Trismegistus.htm", in The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928) by the Canadian occultist Manly Hall; a few quotation websites credit this to Addison.
Misattributed

Life , Secret , Learning

“A thousand trills and quivering sounds
In airy circles o'er us fly,
Till, wafted by a gentle breeze,
They faint and languish by degrees,
And at a distance die.”

Joseph Addison

Ode on St. Cecilia's Day (1699), st. 6.

Flying

“The man who will live above his present circumstances is in great danger of living in a little time much beneath them; or as the Italian proverb runs, "The man who lives by hope, will die by hunger."”

Joseph Addison

No. 191 (9 October 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Hunger , Hope , Time

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

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

Way , Despair

“Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit.”

Joseph Addison

No. 255 (22 December 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Strong

“Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.”

Joseph Addison

No. 256 (24 December 1711)
Often only the first half of this statement is quoted
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Passion , Success

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

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

“Ambition raises a secret tumult in the soul, it inflames the mind, and puts it into a violent hurry of thought.”

Joseph Addison

No. 256 (24 December 1711)
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Secret , Soul

“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.”

Joseph Addison

No. 47 (24 April 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Men , Passion , Personality

“Round-heads and Wooden-shoes are standing jokes.”

Joseph Addison

prologue, l. 8.
The Drummer (1716)

Shoe

“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 possessed.”

Joseph Addison

No. 412 (23 June 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Pleasure , Soul , Imagination , Idea

“Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.”

Joseph Addison

No. 231 (24 November 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most real blessings or misfortunes.”

Joseph Addison

No. 162 (5 September 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“The fraternity of the henpecked.”

Joseph Addison

No. 482 (12 September 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“Much might be said on both sides.”

Joseph Addison

No. 122 (20 July 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
Variant: Much may be said on both sides.

“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.”

Joseph Addison

No. 94 (18 June 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Life , Reading

“Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador.”

Joseph Addison

No. 224.
The Tatler (1711–1714)

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

Joseph Addison

No. 166.
The Guardian (1713)

“Antidotes are what you take to prevent dotes.”

Joseph Addison

Act IV, sc. vi.
The Drummer (1716)

“If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.”

Joseph Addison

No. 494 (26 September 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Laughter

“Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

Beauty , Lovers , Sense

“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.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

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

Secret , Hope , Soul

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

Joseph Addison book Cato

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)
Variant: "When love once pleads admission to our hearts..."

Act IV, scene i. The last line has often been misreported as "He who hesitates is lost", a sentiment inspired by it but not penned by Addison. See Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 3.

Love , Heart

“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.”

Joseph Addison

No. 115.
The Guardian (1713)

Reading

“Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.”

Joseph Addison

The Freeholder, no. 4.