Top 400 Joseph Addison Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.”

— Joseph Addison

352. “A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.”

— Joseph Addison

353. “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

354. “Conspiracies no sooner should be formed Than executed.”

— Joseph Addison

355. “Authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a voluminous writer.”

— Joseph Addison

356. “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

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

— Joseph Addison

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

— Joseph Addison

359. “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

360. “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

361. “A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.”

— Joseph Addison

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362. “How is it possible for those who are men of honor in their persons, thus to become notorious liars in their party.”

— Joseph Addison

363. “Blesses his stars and thinks it luxury.”

— Joseph Addison

364. “Encourage innocent amusement.”

— Joseph Addison

365. “Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.”

— Joseph Addison

366. “Oh! think what anxious moments pass between The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods, Oh! ’tis a dreadful interval of time, Filled up with horror all, and big with death!”

— Joseph Addison

367. “Look what a little vain dust we are!”

— Joseph Addison

368. “Mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity; the gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.”

— Joseph Addison

369. “Music, among those who were styled the chosen people, was a religious art.”

— Joseph Addison

370. “We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are.”

— Joseph Addison

371. “Poverty palls the most generous spirits; it cows industry, and casts resolution itself into despair.”

— Joseph Addison

372. “Whether dark presages of the night proceed from any latent power of the soul during her abstraction, or from any operation of subordinate spirits, has been a dispute.”

— Joseph Addison

373. “The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals; or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.”

— Joseph Addison

374. “The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace.”

— Joseph Addison

375. “Most of our fellow-subjects are guided either by the prejudice of education or by a deference to the judgment of those who perhaps in their own hearts disapprove the opinions which they industriously spread among the multitude.”

— Joseph Addison

376. “Why, a spirit is such a little, little thing, that I have heard man, who was a great scholar, say that he’ll dance ye a hornpipe upon the point of a needle.”

— Joseph Addison

377. “If our zeal were true and genuine we should be much more angry with a sinner than a heretic.”

— Joseph Addison

378. “There are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and perplexities, in an elaborate and well-written piece of nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of school divinity.”

— Joseph Addison

379. “There is nobody so weak of invention that cannot make some little stories to villify his enemy.”

— Joseph Addison

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380. “Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.”

— Joseph Addison

381. “A common civility to an impertinent fellow, often draws upon one a great many unforeseen troubles; and if one doth not take particular care, will be interpreted by him as an overture of friendship and intimacy.”

— Joseph Addison

382. “There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society.”

— Joseph Addison

383. “Wine displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.”

— Joseph Addison

384. “Hope calculates its scenes for a long and durable life; presses forward to imaginary points of bliss; and grasps at impossibilities; and consequently very often ensnares men into beggary, ruin and dishonor.”

— Joseph Addison

385. “The religious man fears, the man of honor scorns, to do an ill action.”

— Joseph Addison

386. “The ungrown glories of his beamy hair.”

— Joseph Addison

387. “Most of the trades, professions, and ways of living among mankind, take their original either from the love of the pleasure, or the fear of want. The former, when it becomes too violent, degenerates into luxury, and the latter into avarice.”

— Joseph Addison

388. “Religion prescribes to every miserable man the means of bettering his condition; nay, it shows him that the bearing of his afflictions as he ought to do, will naturally end in the removal of them.”

— Joseph Addison

389. “It is folly to seek the approbation of any being besides the Supreme.”

— Joseph Addison

390. “The intelligence of affection is carried on by the eye only; good-breeding has made the tongue falsify the heart, and act a part of continued restraint, while nature has preserved the eyes to herself, that she may not be disguised or misrepresented.”

— Joseph Addison

391. “It is of unspeakable advantage to possess our minds with an habitual good intention, and to aim all our thoughts, words, and actions at some laudable end.”

— Joseph Addison

392. “It is indeed very possible, that the Persons we laugh at may in the main of their Characters be much wiser Men than our selves; but if they would have us laugh at them, they must fall short of us in those Respects which stir up this Passion.”

— Joseph Addison

393. “When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions.”

— Joseph Addison

394. “Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.”

— Joseph Addison

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395. “The care of our national commerce redounds more to the riches and prosperity of the public than any other act of government.”

— Joseph Addison

396. “It generally takes its rise either from an ill-will to mankind, a private inclination to make ourselves esteemed, an ostentation of wit, and vanity of being thought in the secrets of the world; or from a desire of gratifying any of these dispositions of mind in those persons with whom we converse.”

— Joseph Addison

397. “Flying would give such occasions for intrigues as people cannot meet with who have nothing but legs to carry them.”

— Joseph Addison

398. “In England we see people lulled sleep with solid and elaborate discourses of piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the bellowings and distortions of enthusiasm.”

— Joseph Addison

399. “The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.”

— Joseph Addison

400. “The lives of great men cannot be writ with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness within a short time after their decease.”

— Joseph Addison