“Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.”
No. 169 (13 September 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
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Joseph Addison 226
politician, writer and playwright 1672–1719Related quotes

(from vol 2, letter 42: 9 Oct 1779, to Mr M___ ) [describing a friend]

“There is a certain kind of morality which is even more alien to good and evil than amorality is.”
“The responsibility of writers,” p. 169
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God (1968)

Source: Art, 1912, Ch. II. To the artist, all in nature is beautiful, p. 46

La critique souvent n'est pas une science; c'est un métier, où il faut plus de santé que d'esprit, plus de travail que de capacité, plus d'habitude que de génie. Si elle vient d'un homme qui ait moins de discernement que de lecture, et qu'elle s'exerce sur de certains chapitres, elle corrompt et les lecteurs et l'écrivain.
Aphorism 63
Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit

“Wit lasts no more than two centuries.”
Le même esprit ne dure que deux cents ans.
Letter to Honoré de Balzac (30 October 1840)

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

CXXIV, Epitaph on Elizabeth, Lady H—, lines 3-6
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), Epigrams

“To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it.”

Odysseus, Book XI, line 846
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)