Joseph Addison Quotes About Literature
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Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.
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Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.
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What pity is it That we can die, but once to serve our country.
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Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.
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Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.
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Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.
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To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.
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The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
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A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.
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Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
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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.
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Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.
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I would fain ask one of these bigotted Infidels, supposing all the great Points of Atheism... were laid together and formed into a kind of Creed, according to the Opinions of the most celebrated Atheists; I say, supposing such a Creed as this were formed, and imposed upon any one People in the World, whether it would not require an infinitely greater Measure of Faith, than any Set of Articles which they so violently oppose.
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Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
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There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
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A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.
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The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.
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When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.
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Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.
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If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.
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There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
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The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
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We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.
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The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.
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The post of honour is a private station.
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The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.
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A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.
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Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!
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The woman that deliberates is lost.
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Jesters do often prove prophets.
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