Joseph Addison

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.

Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.

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 their proper figures.

The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

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.

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

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.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

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.

The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

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.

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.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.