Top 400 Joseph Addison Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “It is observed by Cicero, that men of the greatest and most shining parts are most actuated by ambition.”

— Joseph Addison

152. “T is the Divinity that stirs within us.”

— Joseph Addison

153. “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

154. “Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant.”

— Joseph Addison

155. “Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.”

— Joseph Addison

156. “There is no passion that is not finely expressed in those parts of the inspired writings which are proper for divine songs and anthems.”

— Joseph Addison

157. “Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, and intimates eternity to man.”

— Joseph Addison

158. “In the loss of an object we do not proportion our grief to the real value it bears, but to the value our fancies set upon it.”

— Joseph Addison

159. “There is no talent so pernicious as eloquence to those who have it under command.”

— Joseph Addison

160. “A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.”

— Joseph Addison

161. “Content thyself to be obscurely good.”

— Joseph Addison

162. “There is noting truly valuable which can be purchased without pains and labor. The gods have set a price upon every real and noble pleasure.”

— Joseph Addison

163. “Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.”

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

165. “The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.”

— Joseph Addison

166. “Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them.”

— Joseph Addison

167. “Good Nature, and Evenness of Temper, will give you an easie Companion for Life; Vertue and good Sense, an agreeable Friend; Love and Constancy, a good Wife or Husband. Where we meet one Person with all these Accomplishments, we find an Hundred without any one of them.”

— Joseph Addison

168. “Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.”

— Joseph Addison

169. “Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.”

— Joseph Addison

170. “Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter.”

— Joseph Addison

171. “I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.”

— Joseph Addison

172. “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

173. “If I can in 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

174. “Misery and ignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels.”

— Joseph Addison

175. “The voice of reason is more to be regarded than the bent of any present inclination; since inclination will at length come over to reason, though we can never force reason to comply with inclination.”

— Joseph Addison

176. “There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.”

— Joseph Addison

177. “Nothing lies on our hands with such uneasiness as time. Wretched and thoughtless creatures! In the only place where covetousness were a virtue we turn prodigals.”

— Joseph Addison

178. “The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure.”

— Joseph Addison

179. “A wealthy doctor who can help a poor man, and will not without a fee, has less sense of humanity than a poor ruffian, who kills a rich man to supply his necessities.”

— Joseph Addison

180. “Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: the first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for mine enemies.”

— Joseph Addison

181. “An indiscreet man is more hurtful than an ill-natured one; for as the latter will only attack his enemies, and those he wishes ill to, the other injures indifferently both friends and foes.”

— Joseph Addison

182. “One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.”

— Joseph Addison

183. “Unbounded courage and compassion join’d, Tempering each other in the victor’s mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.”

— Joseph Addison

184. “Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin!”

— Joseph Addison

185. “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.”

— Joseph Addison

186. “A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves constant ease and serenity within us; and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can befall us from without.”

— Joseph Addison

187. “Nothing that isn’t a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.”

— Joseph Addison

188. “I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.”

— Joseph Addison

189. “The most exquisite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning; and they are those which a sour undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence.”

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

191. “Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.”

— Joseph Addison

192. “In my Lucia’s absence Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden; I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear, And grief, and rage and love rise up at once, And with variety of pain distract me.”

— Joseph Addison

193. “The utmost we can hope for in this world is contentment; if we aim at anything higher, we shall meet with nothing but grief and disappointment. A man should direct all his studies and endeavors at making himself easy now and happy hereafter.”

— Joseph Addison

194. “We cannot be guilty of a greater act of uncharitableness, than to interpret the afflictions which befall our neighbors as punishments and judgments.”

— Joseph Addison

195. “A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.”

— Joseph Addison

196. “We find the Works of Nature still more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art.”

— Joseph Addison

197. “The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.”

— Joseph Addison

198. “It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.”

— Joseph Addison

199. “When a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.”

— Joseph Addison

200. “I have but nine-pence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds.”

— Joseph Addison