Joseph Addison Quotes About Desire

Quotes about: Desire

• Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.

  Joseph Addison

  Birthday, Mother Daughter, Fathers Day

• 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

  Beautiful, Kings, Tombstone

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...”, p.83

• A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world; and if in the present life his happiness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will arise in the next from the gratification of them.

  Joseph Addison

  Blessing, Men, Mind

  Joseph Addison, Henry George Bohn, Richard Hurd (1872). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison: The Spectator. The Guardian. The Lover. The present state of the war, and the necessity of augmentation, considered. The late trial and conviction of Count Tariff. The Whig-examiner. The Freeholder”, p.120

• Contentment produces, in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire for them.

  Joseph Addison

  Alchemist, Desire, Contentment

  Joseph Addison (1857). “Essays, Moral and Humorous. Also Essays on Imagination and Taste”, p.162

• 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!

  Joseph Addison

  Plato, Fall, Men

  'Cato' (1713) act 5, sc. 1, l. 1

• Fame is a good so wholly foreign to our natures that we have no faculty in the soul adapted to it, nor any organ in the body to relish it; an object of desire placed out of the possibility of fruition.

  Joseph Addison

  Soul, Desire, Fruition

  Richard Steele, Joseph Addison (1728). “The Spectator”, p.22

• Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit.

  Joseph Addison

  Strong, Men, Desire

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steel (1858). “The Spectator”, p.317

• It generally takes its rise either from an ill-will to mankind, a private inclination to make ourselves esteemed, an ostentation of wit, and vanity of being thought in the secrets of the world; or from a desire of gratifying any of these dispositions of mind in those persons with whom we converse.

  Joseph Addison

  Vanity, Ill Will, Mind

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.675

• Music religious heat inspires, It wakes the soul, and lifts it high, And wings it with sublime desires, And fits it to bespeak the Deity.

  Joseph Addison

  Music, Religious, Wings

  Joseph Addison (1837). “The Tatler. The Guardian. The Freeholder. The Whig-examiner. The lover. Dialogues upon the usefulness of ancient medals. Remarks on several parts of Italy, etc. The present state of the war. The late trial and conviction of Count Tariff. The evidences of the Christian religion. Essay on Virgil's Georgics. Poems on several occasions. Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Notes on some of the foregoing stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Poemata. Rosamond. Cato. The drummer”, p.425

• Content has a kindly influence on the soul of man, in respect of every being to whom he stands related. It extinguishes all murmuring, repining, and ingratitude toward that Being who has allotted us our part to act in the world. It destroys all inordinate ambition; gives sweetness to the conversation, and serenity to all the thoughts; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire of them.

  Joseph Addison

  Ambition, Men, Giving

• The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul, rise in the pursuit.

  Joseph Addison

  Party, Passion, Men

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.296

• The passion for praise, which is so very vehement in the fair sex, produces excellent effects in women of sense, who desire to be admired for that which only deserves admiration.

  Joseph Addison

  Sex, Passion, Desire

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator”, p.236

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