Top 400 Joseph Addison Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created?”

— Joseph Addison

252. “There is nothing which one regards so much with an eye of mirth and pity as innocence when it has in it a dash of folly.”

— Joseph Addison

253. “It is the duty of all who make philosophy the entertainment of their lives, to turn their thoughts to practical schemes for the good of society, and not pass away their time in fruitless searches, which tend rather to the ostentation of knowledge than the service of life.”

— Joseph Addison

254. “It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belongto his Neighbour.”

— Joseph Addison

255. “Guard thy heart on this weak side, where most our nature fails.”

— Joseph Addison

256. “Every man in the time of courtship and in the first entrance of marriage, puts on a behavior like my correspondent’s holiday suit.”

— Joseph Addison

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

257. “A misery is not to be measure from the nature of the evil but from the temper of the sufferer.”

— Joseph Addison

258. “Simonides, a poet famous in his generation, is, I think, author of the oldest satire that is now extant, and, as some say, of the first that was ever written.”

— Joseph Addison

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

259. “The memory is perpetually looking back when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those repositories in animals that are filled with food, on which they may ruminate when their present pastures fail.”

— Joseph Addison

260. “Faith is kept alive in us, and gathers strength, more from practice than from speculations.”

— Joseph Addison

261. “There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.”

— Joseph Addison

262. “I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up.”

— Joseph Addison

263. “The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out of a proper method to catch the reader’s eye; without which, a good thing may pass over unobserved, or lost among commissions of bankrupt.”

— Joseph Addison

264. “Nations with nations mix’d confus’dly die, and lost in one promiscuous carnage lie.”

— Joseph Addison

265. “My heart leaps at the trumpet’s voice.”

— Joseph Addison

266. “I have often wondered that learning is not thought a proper ingredient in the education of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have the same improvable minds as the male part of their species.”

— Joseph Addison

267. “The peacock in all his pride does not display half the colors that appear in the garments of a British lady when she is dressed.”

— Joseph Addison

268. “We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successful.”

— Joseph Addison

269. “I am wonderfully pleased when I meet with any passage in an old Greek or Latin author, that is not blown upon, and which I have never met with in any quotation.”

— Joseph Addison

270. “Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.”

— Joseph Addison

271. “He only is a great man who can neglect the applause of the multitude and enjoy himself independent of its favor.”

— Joseph Addison

272. “Novelty serves us for a kind of refreshment, and takes off from that satiety we are apt to complain of in our usual and ordinary entertainments.”

— Joseph Addison

273. “One would fancy that the zealots in atheism would be exempt from the single fault which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervor of religion. But so it is, that irreligion is propagated with as much fierceness and contention, wrath and indignation, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it.”

— Joseph Addison

274. “Plutarch says very finely that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies.”

— Joseph Addison

275. “The greatest parts, without discretion as observed by an elegant writer, may be fatal to their owner; as Polyphemus, deprived of his eyes, was only the more exposed on account of his enormous strength and stature.”

— Joseph Addison

276. “Jesters do often prove prophets.”

— Joseph Addison

277. “Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honors, then to retire.”

— Joseph Addison

278. “I believe that everyone, some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters; in which case the invention prompts so readily that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the composition of another.”

— Joseph Addison

279. “Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep the fire out of the one, and the frost out of the other.”

— Joseph Addison

280. “There is not in earth a spectacle more worthy than a great man superior to his sufferings.”

— Joseph Addison

281. “Riches expose a man to pride and luxury, and a foolish elation of heart.”

— Joseph Addison

282. “Nothing makes men sharper than want.”

— Joseph Addison

283. “A man with great talents, but void of discretion, is like Polyphemus in the fable, strong and blind, endued with an irresistible force, which for want of sight is of no use to him.”

— Joseph Addison

Featured in: Strong Quotes

284. “Life is not long enough for a coquette to play all her tricks in.”

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

286. “The English delight in Silence more than any other European Nation, if the Remarks which are made on us by Foreigners are true.”

— Joseph Addison

287. “To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady’s attire this is the single excellence; for to be what some people call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking.”

— Joseph Addison

288. “In rising sighs and falling tears.”

— Joseph Addison

289. “Even the greatest actions of a celebrated person labor under this disadvantage, that however surprising and extraordinary they may be, they are no more than what are expected from him.”

— Joseph Addison

290. “Is it not wonderful, that the love of the parent should be so violent while it lasts and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young?”

— Joseph Addison

291. “A solid and substantial greatness of soul looks down with neglect on the censures and applauses of the multitude.”

— Joseph Addison

292. “Among the writers of antiquity there are none who instruct us more openly in the manners of their respective times in which they lived than those who have employed themselves in satire, under whatever dress it may appear.”

— Joseph Addison

293. “Though a man cannot abstain from being weak, he may from being vicious.”

— Joseph Addison

294. “From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life; where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.”

— Joseph Addison

295. “Religion contracts the circle of our pleasures, but leaves it wide enough for her votaries to expatiate in.”

— Joseph Addison

296. “The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.”

— Joseph Addison

297. “As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.”

— Joseph Addison

Featured in: Reading Quotes

298. “The great number of the Jews furnishes us with a sufficient cloud of witnesses that attest the truth of the Bible.”

— Joseph Addison

299. “I would have every zealous man examine his heart thoroughly, and I believe he will often find that what be calls a zeal for his religion is either pride, interest, or ill-repute.”

— Joseph Addison

300. “Pedantry in learning is like hypocrisy inn religion – a form of knowledge without the power of it.”

— Joseph Addison