English essayist, poet & playwright (1672-1719)
When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view I'm lost,
In wonder, love and praise.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Hymn
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
But further, a man whose extraordinary reputation thus lifts him up to the notice and Observation of mankind, draws a multitude of eyes upon him that will narrowly inspect every part of him.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, No. 256
In short, if you banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the virtue that is in it.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, November 24, 1711
Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, Sep. 21, 1713
If there's a power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud through all her works) he must delight in virtue.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, and intimates eternity to man.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Jul. 9, 1711
For how few ambitious men are there, who have got as much fame as they desired, and whose thirst after it has not been as eager in the very height of their reputation, as it was before they became known and eminent among men?
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, No. 256
Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, Jul. 4, 1713
Music religious heat inspires / It wakes the soul, and lifts it high / And wings it with sublime desires / And fits it to bespeak the Deity.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Song for St. Cecilia's Day
Poverty palls the most generous spirits; it cows industry, and casts resolution itself into despair.
JOSEPH ADDISON
attributed, Day's Collacon
On you, my lord, with anxious fear I wait, and from your judgment must expect my fate.
JOSEPH ADDISON
A Poem to His Majesty
Nature is full of wonders; every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities, as could not be impressed on it by a power and wisdom less than infinite.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Tatler, Aug. 26, 1710
To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Mar. 8, 1711
A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next to escape the censures of the world: if the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of the public: a man is more sure of his conduct, when the verdict which he passes upon his own behaviour is thus warranted and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Jul. 20, 1711
Thy father's merit sets thee up to view,
And shows thee in the fairest point of light,
To make thy virtues, or thy faults, conspicuous.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Thoughts in Westminster Abbey
Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy that are preceded by a long courtship.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Dec. 29, 1711
Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, Aug. 1, 1713