It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination.
Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behavior.
The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.
The ages of greatest public spirit are not always eminent for private virtue.
I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones.
What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.
But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.
Fine writing, according to Mr. Addison, consists of sentiments which are natural without being obvious.
No human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion.
Eloquence, when in its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection.
Nothing is more favorable to the rise of politeness and learning, than a number of neighboring and independent states, connected together by commerce and policy.
Nothing exists without a cause, the original cause of this universe we call God.
Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed.
Praise never gives us much pleasure unless it concur with our own opinion, and extol us for those qualities in which we chiefly excel.
Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains.
An infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man, one should think, whose judgement is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it.
Everything is sold to skill and labor; and where nature furnishes the materials, they are still rude and unfinished, till industry, ever active and intelligent, refines them from their brute state, and fits them for human use and convenience.
Almost every one has a predominant inclination, to which his other desires and affections submit, and which governs him, though perhaps with some intervals, though the whole course of his life.
There is a set of harmless liars, frequently to be met with in company, who deal much in the marvellous. Their usual intention is to please and entertain; but as men are most delighted with what they conceive to be the truth, these people mistake the means of pleasing, and incur universal blame.