Joseph Addison

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.

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.

Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.

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.