A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.
Joseph Addison

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.
Joseph Addison

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.
Joseph Addison

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

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.
Joseph Addison

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.
Joseph Addison

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

Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.
Joseph Addison

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.
Joseph Addison

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
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.
Joseph Addison

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.
Joseph Addison

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.
Joseph Addison

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
Joseph Addison

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.
Joseph Addison

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.
Joseph Addison

Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.
Joseph Addison

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
Joseph Addison

I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: "What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me."
Joseph Addison

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.
Joseph Addison