Top 400 Joseph Addison Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

303. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

305. “Women were formed to temper Mankind, and sooth them into Tenderness and Compassion; not to set an Edge upon their Minds, and blowup in them those Passions which are too apt to rise of their own Accord.”

— Joseph Addison

306. “It must be a prospect pleasing to God Himself to see His creation forever beautifying in His eyes, and drawing nearer Him by greater degrees of resemblance.”

— Joseph Addison

307. “Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacence, if they discover none of the like in themselves.”

— Joseph Addison

308. “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

309. “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

310. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

313. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

315. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

318. “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

319. “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

320. “It is ridiculous for any man to criticize on the works of another, who has not distinguished himself by his own performances.”

— Joseph Addison

321. “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

322. “Great Pompey’s shade complains that we are slow, And Scipio’s ghost walks unaveng’d amongst us!”

— Joseph Addison

323. “Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds and glitters for a moment.”

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

326. “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

327. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

330. “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

331. “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

332. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

334. “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

335. “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

336. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

338. “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

339. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

341. “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

342. “All of heaven we have below.”

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

344. “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

345. “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

346. “Who rant by note, and through the gamut rage; in songs and airs express their martial fire; combat in trills, and in a fugue expire.”

— Joseph Addison

347. “Many actions calculated to procure fame are not conducive to ultimate happiness.”

— Joseph Addison

348. “What can that man fear who takes care to please a Being that is able to crush all his adversaries?”

— Joseph Addison

349. “That fine part of our construction, the eye, seems as much the receptacle and seat of our passions as the mind itself; and at least it is the outward portal to introduce them to the house within, or rather the common thoroughfare to let our affections pass in and out.”

— Joseph Addison

350. “The statue lies hid in a block of marble; and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish.”

— Joseph Addison