Joseph Addison

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

Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.

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

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

Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.

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.

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.

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 union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life... Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.

A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.