A quotation from Joseph Addison

When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions and debates of mankind.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-03-30), “Thoughts in Westminster Abbey,” The Spectator, No. 26

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovelful of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon this, I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-03-30), “Thoughts in Westminster Abbey,” The Spectator, No. 26

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

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.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-03-30), “Thoughts in Westminster Abbey,” The Spectator, No. 26

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tombstones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another: the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-03-30), “Thoughts in Westminster Abbey,” The Spectator, No. 26

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

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

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1712-09-06), The Spectator, No. 477

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

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.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-05-18), The Spectator, No. 68

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

Upon the whole, a contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1714-07-30), The Spectator, No. 574

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

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.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1712-08-02), The Spectator, No. 447

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

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.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Poem (1712-07-26), “Psalm 23,” st. 1, ll. 1-4, The Spectator, No. 441

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

Cheerfulness is, in the first place, the best promoter of health. Repinings, and secret murmurs of heart, give imperceptible strokes to those delicate fibres of which the vital parts are composed, and wear out the machine insensibly; not to mention those violent ferments which they stir up in the blood, and those irregular disturbed motions which they raise in the animal spirits.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1712-05-24), The Spectator, No. 387

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