Joseph Addison Mind Quotations

Cleanliness may be defined to be the emblem of purity of mind.

The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life... Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

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

Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttlefish that, when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens the water about him till he becomes invisible.

I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.

There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world; and if in the present life his happiness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will arise in the next from the gratification of them.

It is of unspeakable advantage to possess our minds with an habitual good intention, and to aim all our thoughts, words, and actions at some laudable end.

There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, "That drunkenness does not produce but discover faults." Common experience teaches the contrary. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses dualities into the mind which she is a stranger to in her sober moments.

True religion and virtue give a cheerful and happy turn to the mind, admit of all true pleasures, and even procure for us the highest.

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties, and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul.

Women were formed to temper Mankind, and sooth them into Tenderness and Compassion; not to set an Edge upon their Minds, and blowup in them those Passions which are too apt to rise of their own Accord.

It is not the business of virtue to extirpate the affections of the mind, but to regulate them.

Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.

I have often wondered that learning is not thought a proper ingredient in the education of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have the same improvable minds as the male part of their species.

A religious hope does not only bear up the mind under her sufferings but makes her rejoice in them.

Music raises in the mind of the hearer great conceptions: it strengthens and advances praise into rapture.

One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.

Our disputants put me in mind of the scuttle fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him, till he becomes invisible.