Top 400 Joseph Addison Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 7 of 9

301. “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

302. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

304. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

306. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

308. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

Featured in: Reading Quotes

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

— Joseph Addison

311. “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

312. “E’en the rough rocks with tender myrtle bloom, and trodden weeds send out a rich perfume.”

— Joseph Addison

313. “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

314. “Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eyebrow call a man a scoundrel.”

— Joseph Addison

315. “A man improves more by reading the story of a person eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality.”

— Joseph Addison

Featured in: Reading Quotes, Quotes About Stories

316. “Riches are apt to betray a man into arrogance.”

— Joseph Addison

317. “Fame is a good so wholly foreign to our natures that we have no faculty in the soul adapted to it, nor any organ in the body to relish it; an object of desire placed out of the possibility of fruition.”

— Joseph Addison

318. “Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.”

— Joseph Addison

319. “The English Writers of Tragedy are possessed with a Notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent Person in Distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his Troubles, or made him triumph over his Enemies.”

— Joseph Addison

320. “There is nothing in which men more deceive themselves than in what they call zeal.”

— Joseph Addison

321. “Tradition is an important help to history, but its statements should be carefully scrutinized before we rely on them.”

— Joseph Addison

322. “Our Grub-street biographers watch for the death of a great man like so many undertakers on purpose to make a penny of him.”

— Joseph Addison

323. “Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all prospect of a future state is only fancy and delusion? Is there any merit in being the messenger of ill news. If it is a dream, let me enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.”

— Joseph Addison

324. “What can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being?”

— Joseph Addison

325. “Marriage enlarges the Scene of our Happiness and Miseries.”

— Joseph Addison

326. “A few persons of an odious and despised country could not have filled the world with believers, had they not shown undoubted credentials from the divine person who sent them on such a message.”

— Joseph Addison

327. “The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.”

— Joseph Addison

328. “The schoolboy counts the time till the return of the holidays; the minor longs to be of age; the lover is impatient till he is married.”

— Joseph Addison

329. “We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion.”

— Joseph Addison

330. “True religion and virtue give a cheerful and happy turn to the mind, admit of all true pleasures, and even procure for us the highest.”

— Joseph Addison

331. “We are growing serious, and, let me tell you, that’s the very next step to being dull.”

— Joseph Addison

332. “For my own part, I am apt to join in the opinion with those who believe that all the regions of Nature swarm with spirits, and that we have multitudes of spectators on all our actions when we think ourselves most alone.”

— Joseph Addison

333. “Antidotes are what you take to prevent dotes.”

— Joseph Addison

334. “If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.”

— Joseph Addison

335. “All of heaven we have below.”

— Joseph Addison

336. “Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies; and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us, we see the worst side of ourselves.”

— Joseph Addison

337. “We see the pernicious effects of luxury in the ancient Romans, who immediately found themselves poor as soon as this vice got footing among them.”

— Joseph Addison

338. “The first race of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rule of art.”

— Joseph Addison

339. “Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatever.”

— Joseph Addison

340. “In the common run of mankind, for one that is wise and good you find ten of a contrary character.”

— Joseph Addison

341. “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

342. “No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning.”

— Joseph Addison

343. “Our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our nearer acquaintance with him; and we seldom hear of a celebrated person without a catalogue of some notorious weaknesses and infirmities.”

— Joseph Addison

344. “It happened very providentially, to the honor of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height.”

— Joseph Addison

345. “We make provisions for this life as if it were never to have an end, and for the other life as though it were never to have a beginning.”

— Joseph Addison

346. “It is certain that there is no other passion which does produce such contrary effects in so great a degree. But this may be said for love, that if you strike it out of the soul, life would be insipid, and our being but half animated.”

— Joseph Addison

347. “I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves and useful to the world.”

— Joseph Addison

348. “The moderns cannot reach their beauties, but can avoid their imperfections.”

— Joseph Addison

349. “I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian may die.”

— Joseph Addison

350. “Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.”

— Joseph Addison