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Character Quotes by Joseph Addison

40 Character quotes by Joseph Addison

All Character quotes Joseph Addison’s page

Joseph Addison warns that vanity can expose a person to scorn and ruin character. He contrasts true modesty, which protects virtue, with false modesty that betrays it. He also notes that a spirit of party can warp both morals and judgment, while genuine honor ties together law, mind, and virtue.

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Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands.

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How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue!

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Virtue which shuns, the day.

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This party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments.

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Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.

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In the common run of mankind, for one that is wise and good you find ten of a contrary character.

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Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

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I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality.

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There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.

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Knowledge is that which, next to virtue, truly raises one person above another.

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

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

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Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind's distinguishing perfection That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her…

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The first of all virtues is innocence; the next is modesty. If we banish modesty out of the world, she carries away…

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A man improves more by reading the story of a person eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and…

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The moral perfections of the Deity, the more attentively, we consider, the more perfectly still shall we know them.

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Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses…

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Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.

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When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes…

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Virgil has very finely touched upon the female passion for dress and shows, in the character of Camilla; who though she seems…

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We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design…

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I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck. A good…

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A man governs himself by the dictates of virtue and good sense, who acts without zeal or passion in points that are…

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The moral virtues, without religion are but cold, lifeless, and insipid; it is only religion which opens the mind to great conceptions,…

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Persons in great stations have seldom their true character drawn till several years after their death. Their personal friendships and enmities must…

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Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The…

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It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in…

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Though there is a benevolence due to all mankind, none can question but a superior degree of it is to be paid…

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

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

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Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.

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A state of temperance, sobriety and justice without devotion is a cold, lifeless, insipid condition of virtue, and is rather to be…

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A person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith…

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The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well written play, where the principal persons…

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To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it…

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If there's a power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works,) he must delight in…

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It is indeed very possible, that the Persons we laugh at may in the main of their Characters be much wiser Men…

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An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what…

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Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At…

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Complaisance, though in itself it be scarce reckoned in the number of moral virtues, is that which gives a lustre to every…

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More by Joseph Addison

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

Every wife ought to answer for her man. If the husband be engaged in a seditious club, or drinks mysterious healths, or be frugal…

There is nothing touches our imagination so much as a beautiful woman in a plain dress.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

Female Virtues are of a Domestick turn. The Family is the proper Province for Private Women to Shine in. If they must be showing…

As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply…

When love once pleads admission to our hearts, In spite of all the virtue we can boast, The woman that deliberates is lost.

Many actions calculated to procure fame are not conducive to ultimate happiness.

T is liberty crowns Britannia's Isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

The moral perfections of the Deity, the more attentively, we consider, the more perfectly still shall we know them.

The utmost we can hope for in this world is contentment; if we aim at anything higher, we shall meet with nothing but grief…

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts;…

The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.