Joseph Addison

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.

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

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.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

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

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

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

What pity is it that we can die but once to serve our country!

Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.

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

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.

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

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

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

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