If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.
Author
Joseph Addison
51 quotations
About Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison was a British writer and politician. He was the eldest son of Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine. His simple prose style marked the end of the mannerisms and conventional classical images of the 17th century. Addison is also famous for his play Cato, a Tragedy, written in 1712.
Read on Wikipedia → Find books by Joseph AddisonIf you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.
True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.
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Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.
To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.
The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.
True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.
The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.
To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.
If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.
The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.
Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.
Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.
There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.
Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.
It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through…
Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts old age is slow in both.