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It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning.

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Jul 27, 2025

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It must be so, Plato, thou reason'st well!
Joseph Addison

Quote Author: Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison (May 1, 1672 - June 17, 1719) was an English essayist, poet and man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison, later dean of Lichfield. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine.

Other Joseph Addison Quotes

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.

The Fear of Death often proves Mortal, and sets People on Methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.

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.

Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man!

There is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. They are but trifles, to be sure, But, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

Music can noble hints impart, engender fury, kindle love, with unsuspected eloquence can move and manage all the man with secret art.

Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, Hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!

Music is the only sensual gratification which mankind may indulge in to excess without injury to their moral or religious feelings.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.

Ideas in the mind are the transcript of the world; words are the transcript of ideas; And writing and printing are the transcript of words.

Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.

When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.

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

A perfect tragedy is the noblest production of human nature.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below.

The woman that deliberates is lost.

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.

Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin?

Admiration is a very short-lived passion that decays on growing familiar with its object unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries and kept alive by perpetual miracles rising up to its view.

The Gods in bounty work up storms about us, that give mankind occasion to exert their hidden strength, and throw our into practice virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calms of life.

The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out of a proper method to catch the reader's eye; without which, a good thing may pass over unobserved, or lost among commissions of bankrupt.

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.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful.

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

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

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.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

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.

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.

Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep the fire out of the one, and the frost out of the other.

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

Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.

Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense. The virtuous Marcia towers above her sex.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shapes of pains, losses and the disappointments; but let us have patience, and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim.

Books are the legacies of that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

Much may be said on both sides.

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. — Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and cringes over the most obstinate and inflexible. — Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens; confounded their statesmen; struck their orators dumb; and at length argued them out of all their liberties.

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?

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

I have often thought, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the Middle of Winter.

For wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise, Poetic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground.

Our disputants put me in mind of the skuttle fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him, till he becomes invisible.

I 'm weary of conjectures,—this must end 'em. Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life, My bane and antidote, are both before me: This in a moment brings me to an end; But this informs me I shall never die. The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years; But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the war of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves a constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions that can possibly befall us.

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart, and his next to escape the censures of the world.

Nothing that isn't a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.

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

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.

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.

The Hand that made us is divine.

What a pity is it That we can die but once to save our country!

From hence, let fierce contending nations know What dire effects from civil discord flow.

There are many shining qualities on the mind of man; but none so useful as discretion. It is this which gives a value to all the rest, and sets them at work in their proper places, and turns them to the advantage of their possessor. Without it, learning is pedantry; wit, impertinence; virtue itself looks like weakness; and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice. Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.

A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.

For ever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine.

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!

Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.

It was a saying of an ancient philosopher, which I find some of our writers have ascribed to Queen Elizabeth, who perhaps might have taken occasion to repeat it, that a good face is a letter of recommendation.

Faith is kept alive in us, and gathers strength, more from practice than from speculation.

The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.

There is no defense against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.

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.

A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.

Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.

Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joy, and dividing our grief.

The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasures.

Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, And Scipio's ghost walks unaveng'd amongst us!

But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude.

We are growing serious, and let me tell you, that's the next step to being dull.

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

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

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

Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency.

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.

Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.

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

See in what peace a Christian can die.

Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent reliefs we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

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.

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

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.

Whilst I yet live, let me not live in vain.

Love is a second life; it grows into the soul, warms every vein, and beats in every pulse.

Blesses his stars and thinks it luxury.

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

Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds and glitters for a moment.

Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth; While all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.

And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

It must be so, Plato, thou reason'st well!

'We are always doing', says he, 'something for Posterity, but I would fain see Posterity do something for us.’

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.

Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world, and ignorance of mankind.

'T 's pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul; I think the Romans call it stoicism.

There is nothing more requisite in business than dispatch.

Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.

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.

It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.

Round-heads and wooden-shoes are standing jokes.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin?

The Lord my pasture shall prepare, And feed me with a shepherd's care; His presence shall my wants supply, And guard me with a watchful eye.

Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated.

My voice is still for war. Gods! can a Roman senate long debate Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?

From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life; where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.

To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.

Should the whole frame of Nature round him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world.

Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.

'T is not in mortals to command success, But we 'll do more, Sempronius, — we 'll deserve it.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

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

I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.

The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, the important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome.

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

In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

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.

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

And those that paint them truest praise them most.

When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honour is a private station.

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

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

True benevolence, or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation.

Criticism::'It is folly for an eminent person to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected by it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defense against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.

Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

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

A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections.

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.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.

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