Quotes by Joseph Addison

If you wish success in life, make perseverance you bosom friend, experience your wise councellor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

The ways of heaven are dark and intricate;Puzzled in mazes, and perplext with errors.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

... when I see kings lying by those who deposed them,... or holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind.

Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in proper figures.

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.

Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.

Arguments out of a petty mouth are unanswerable.

Charity is the perfection and ornament of religion.

Colors speak all languages.

Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man ... courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.

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

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery by doubling our joy and dividing our grief.