Joseph Addison Men Quotations

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

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

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

To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.

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

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

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

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

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

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.

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

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.'

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.

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.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

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

Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.

A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.

No vices are so incurable as those which men are apt to glory in

If men would consider not so much where they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world

In that disputable point of persecuting men for conscience sake, I see such dreadful consequences rising, I would be as fully convinced of the truth of it, as a mathematical demonstration, before I would venture to act upon it or make it a part of my religion.

Our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our nearer acquaintance with him; and we seldom hear of a celebrated person without a catalogue of some notorious weaknesses and infirmities.

It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belongto his Neighbour.

I Have often thought if the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool. There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both. The great difference is, that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by suppressing some, and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words.

He only is a great man who can neglect the applause of the multitude and enjoy himself independent of its favor.

Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.

A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.

Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.

I... recommend to every one of my Readers, the keeping a Journal of their Lives for one Week, and setting down punctually their whole Series of Employments during that Space of Time. This kind of Self-Examination would give them a true State of themselves, and incline them to consider seriously what they are about. One Day would rectifie the Omissions of another, and make a Man weigh all those indifferent Actions, which, though they are easily forgotten, must certainly be accounted for.

Authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a voluminous writer.

When a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.

It is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards with no conversation but what is made up of a few game-phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots arranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short?

Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honors, then to retire.

It must be so,-Plato, thou reasonest well! Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us; 'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!

Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.

A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts

A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy.

Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, and intimates eternity to man.

Should a writer single out and point his raillery at particular persons, or satirize the miserable, he might be sure of pleasing a great part of his readers, but must be a very ill man if he could please himself.

O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not! The best may err, but you are good.

How is it possible for those who are men of honor in their persons, thus to become notorious liars in their party

Why, a spirit is such a little, little thing, that I have heard man, who was a great scholar, say that he'll dance ye a hornpipe upon the point of a needle.

A wealthy doctor who can help a poor man, and will not without a fee, has less sense of humanity than a poor ruffian, who kills a rich man to supply his necessities.

It is ridiculous for any man to criticize on the works of another, who has not distinguished himself by his own performances.

Nothing makes a woman more esteemed by the opposite sex than chastity; whether it be that we always prize those most who are hardest to come at, or that nothing besides chastity, with its collateral attendants, truth, fidelity, and constancy, gives a man a property in the person he loves, and consequently endears her to him above all things.

Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.

Instability of temper ought to be checked when it disposes men to wander from one scheme to another: since such a fickleness cannot but be attended with fatal consequences.

Though a man cannot abstain from being weak, he may from being vicious.

The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas.

Hope calculates its scenes for a long and durable life; presses forward to imaginary points of bliss; and grasps at impossibilities; and consequently very often ensnares men into beggary, ruin and dishonor.

There is not in earth a spectacle more worthy than a great man superior to his sufferings.

The talent of turning men into ridicule, and exposing to laughter those one converses with, is the qualification of little ungenerous tempers.

When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.

An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage, in particular, is a kind of counter apotheosis, as a deification inverted. When a man becomes familiar with his goddess she quickly sinks into a woman.

Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit.

The man who will live above his present circumstances, is in great danger of soon living beneath them; or as the Italian proverb says, "The man that lives by hope, will die by despair.

Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood.

Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.

Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.

In private conversation between intimate friends, the wisest men very often talk like the weakest : for indeed the talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

A jealous man is very quick in his application: he knows how to find a double edge in an invective, and to draw a satire on himself out of a panegyrick on another.

There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.

Half the misery of human life might be extinguished if men would alleviate the general curse they lie under by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence, and humanity.

I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck. A good character, good habits and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of all ill-luck that fools ever dreamed.

Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies; and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us, we see the worst side of ourselves.

A friend exaggerates a man's virtues; an enemy inflames his crimes.

The man who lives by hope, will die by hunger.

If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.

When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions.

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.

Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them.

Man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart, and next to escape the censures of the world. If the last interfere with the first it should be entirely neglected. But if not, there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind than to see its own approbation seconded by the applause of the public.

An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.

A man's reputation draws eyes upon him that will narrowly inspect every part of him.

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.

No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning.

Government mitigates the inequality of power, and makes an innocent man, though of the lowest rank, a match for the mightiest of his fellow-subjects.

There is a kind of grandeur and respect which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavor to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the soul of man, might, methinks, receive a very happy turn; and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage, as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet.

It is observed by Cicero, that men of the greatest and most shining parts are most actuated by ambition.

The religious man fears, the man of honor scorns, to do an ill action.

Man is the merriest species of the creation; all above or below him are serious.

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.

An indiscreet man is more hurtful than an ill-natured one; for as the latter will only attack his enemies, and those he wishes ill to, the other injures indifferently both friends and foes.

Learning, like traveling and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more insufferable by supplying variety of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in absurdities.

If ridicule were employed to laugh men out of vice and folly, it might be of some use.

Riches expose a man to pride and luxury, and a foolish elation of heart.

Riches are apt to betray a man into arrogance.

A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.

Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eyebrow call a man a scoundrel.

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?

We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successful.

Honor's a fine imaginary notion, that draws in raw and unexperienced men to real mischiefs.

There is nothing in which men more deceive themselves than in what they call zeal.

Content has a kindly influence on the soul of man, in respect of every being to whom he stands related. It extinguishes all murmuring, repining, and ingratitude toward that Being who has allotted us our part to act in the world. It destroys all inordinate ambition; gives sweetness to the conversation, and serenity to all the thoughts; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire of them.

An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.

Nothing makes men sharper than want.

Religion prescribes to every miserable man the means of bettering his condition; nay, it shows him that the bearing of his afflictions as he ought to do, will naturally end in the removal of them.

There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society.