Joseph Addison ( 10 of 139 )
Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable read more
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.
Tradition is an important help to history, but its statements should be carefully scrutinized before we rely on them.
Tradition is an important help to history, but its statements should be carefully scrutinized before we rely on them.
My death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
My death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the
one, health is preserved, strengthened, read more
Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the
one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the
other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive,
cherished, and confirmed.
From hence, let fierce contending nations know,
What dire effects from civil discord flow.
From hence, let fierce contending nations know,
What dire effects from civil discord flow.
Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes read more
Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
It must be so--Plato, thou reasonest well!--
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing read more
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,
O falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of read more
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 friendships of the world are oft
Confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasure;
Ours has severest read more
The friendships of the world are oft
Confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasure;
Ours has severest virtue for its basis,
And such a friendship ends not but with life.
Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience read more
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.