Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. Joseph Addison More Quotes by Joseph Addison More Quotes From Joseph Addison The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure. Joseph Addison figures appearance beautiful 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 drawing eye forever In rising sighs and falling tears. Joseph Addison tears grief fall The world is so full of ill-nature that I have lampoons sent me by people who cannot spell, and satires composed by those who scarce know how to write. Joseph Addison writing people world Men naturally warm and heady are transported with the greatest flush of good-nature. Joseph Addison good-humor good-nature men How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created? Joseph Addison perfection men fall 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 holiday return age There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and satires that are written with wit and spirit are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable. Joseph Addison gossip giving men Man is the merriest species of the creation; all above or below him are serious. Joseph Addison mirth serious men He only is a great man who can neglect the applause of the multitude and enjoy himself independent of its favor. Joseph Addison independent greatness men Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance. Joseph Addison balance weight opposites Virtue which shuns, the day. Joseph Addison modesty virtue A religious hope does not only bear up the mind under her sufferings but makes her rejoice in them. Joseph Addison religious hope mind Hudibras has defined nonsense, as Cowley does wit, by negatives. Nonsense, he says, is that which is neither true nor false. These two great properties of nonsense, which are always essential to it, give it such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapable of being either answered or contradicted. Joseph Addison writing giving two There is not a more melancholy object than a man who has his head turned with religious enthusiasm. Joseph Addison religious enthusiasm men A statue lies hid in a block of marble, and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone; the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero,--the wise, the good, or the great man,--very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light. Joseph Addison wise education art Even the greatest actions of a celebrated person labor under this disadvantage, that however surprising and extraordinary they may be, they are no more than what are expected from him. Joseph Addison notoriety action may I believe that everyone, some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters; in which case the invention prompts so readily that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the composition of another. Joseph Addison dream mistake believe 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 reading example men As Vivacity is the Gift of Women, Gravity is that of Men. Joseph Addison vivacity gravity women
