Mere bashfulness without merit is awkward; and merit without modesty, insolent. But modest merit has a double claim to acceptance, and generally meets with as many patrons as beholders. — Joseph Addison Copy Share Image
There is no greater sign of a bad cause, than when the patrons of it are reduced to the necessity of making use of the most wicked artifices to support it. — Joseph Addison Copy Share Image
Half the misery of human life might be extinguished if men would alleviate the general curse they lie under by mutual offices of compassion,… — Joseph Addison Copy Share
Every wife ought to answer for her man. If the husband be engaged in a seditious club, or drinks mysterious healths, or be frugal… — Joseph Addison Copy Share
There is nothing touches our imagination so much as a beautiful woman in a plain dress. — Joseph Addison Copy Share
We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us. — Joseph Addison Copy Share
Female Virtues are of a Domestick turn. The Family is the proper Province for Private Women to Shine in. If they must be showing… — Joseph Addison Copy Share
As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest. — Joseph Addison Copy Share
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… — Joseph Addison Copy Share
When love once pleads admission to our hearts, In spite of all the virtue we can boast, The woman that deliberates is lost. — Joseph Addison Copy Share
Many actions calculated to procure fame are not conducive to ultimate happiness. — Joseph Addison Copy Share
T is liberty crowns Britannia's Isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile. — Joseph Addison Copy Share
The moral perfections of the Deity, the more attentively, we consider, the more perfectly still shall we know them. — Joseph Addison Copy Share
The utmost we can hope for in this world is contentment; if we aim at anything higher, we shall meet with nothing but grief… — Joseph Addison Copy Share
Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts;… — Joseph Addison Copy Share
The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener. — Joseph Addison Copy Share
