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The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness,
and peril of falling?
Topic: Honor
Source: Cato (act IV, sc. 4)
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Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.
Topic: Honor
Source: None
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The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
Topic: Hope
Source: None
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Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.
Topic: Imagination
Source: None
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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,
O falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Topic: Immortality
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 1)
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The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the wars of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
Topic: Immortality
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 1)
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I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to
achieve immortality through not dying.
Topic: Immortality
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 1)
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It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others. -Joseph Addison.
Topic: Inspiring
Source: None
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For whereso'er I turn my ravished eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise;
Poetic fields encompass me around,
And still I seem to tread on classic ground.
Topic: Italy
Source: Letter from Italy
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Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as
they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big
enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements;
by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of
news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an
ambassador.
Topic: Journalism
Source: in the "Tatler", no. 224
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I would . . . earnestly advise them for their good to order this
paper to be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as a part
of the tea equipage.
Topic: Journalism
Source: in the "Spectator", no. 10
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The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out a
proper method to catch the reader's eye; without which a good
thing may pass over unobserved, or be lost among commissions of
bankrupt.
Topic: Journalism
Source: in the "Tatler", no. 224
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They consume a considerable quantity of our paper manufacture,
employ our artisans in printing, and find business for great
numbers of indigent persons.
Topic: Journalism
Source: in the "Spectator", no. 367
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On you, my lord, with anxious fear I wait,
And from your judgment must expect my fate.
Topic: Judgment
Source: A Poem to His Majesty (l. 21)
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Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore
always represented as blind.
Topic: Justice
Source: in the "Guardian", no. 99
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There in no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.
Topic: Justice
Source: in the "Guardian", no. 99
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Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and
essentially raises one man above another.
Topic: Knowledge
Source: in the "Guardian", no. 111, Letter of Alexander to Aristotle
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Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
Topic: Laughter
Source: None
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A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
Topic: Liberty
Source: Cato (act II, sc. 1)
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When love's well-timed 'tis not a fault of love;
The strong, the brave, the virtuous, and the wise,
Sink in the soft captivity together.
Topic: Love
Source: Cato (act III, sc. 1)
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When love once pleads admission to our hearts,
(In spite of all the virtue we can boast),
The woman that deliberates is lost.
Topic: Love
Source: Cato (act IV, sc. 1)
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Mysterious love, uncertain treasure,
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure!
. . . .
Endless torments dwell above thee:
Yet who would live, and live without thee!
Topic: Love
Source: Rosamond (act III, sc. 2)
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Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.
Topic: Luxury
Source: Cato (act I, sc. 4)
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When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view I'm lost,
In wonder, love and praise.
Topic: Mercy
Source: Hymn
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Thy father's merit sets thee up to view,
And shows thee in the fairest point of light,
To make thy virtues, or thy faults, conspicuous.
Topic: Merit
Source: Cato (act I, sc. 2)
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A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.
Topic: Misery
Source: None
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Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.
Topic: Modesty
Source: None
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Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth.
Topic: Moon
Source: in the "Spectator", no. 465, Ode
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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.
Topic: Music
Source: A Song for St. Cecilia's Day (st. 4)
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If there's a power above us, (and that there is all nature cries
aloud
Through all her works) he must delight in virtue.
Topic: Nature
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 1)
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Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.
Topic: Nature
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 1)
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The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.
Topic: Nothing
Source: None
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Content thyself to be obscurely good.
When vice prevails and impious men bear away,
The post of honor is a private station.
Topic: Obscurity
Source: Cato (act IV, sc. 4)
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An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
Topic: Ostentation
Source: None
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An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
Topic: Ostentation
Source: None
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And those who paint 'em truest praise 'em most.
Topic: Painting
Source: The Campaign (last line)
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Who would not be that youth? What pity is it
That we can die but once to save our country!
Topic: Patriotism
Source: Cato (act IV, sc. 4)
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It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.
Topic: Perfection
Source: None
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Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence, of this
virtue.
Topic: Philanthropy
Source: in the "Guardian", no. 166
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Yet then from all my grief, O Lord,
Thy mercy set me free,
Whilst in the confidence of pray'r
My soul took hold on thee.
- Joseph Addison,
Topic: Prayer
Source: Miscellaneous Poems--Divine Ode made by Gentleman on Conclusion of his Travels (verse 6)
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Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Topic: Pride
Source: None
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A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own
heart, his next to escape the censures of the world.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Sir Roger on the Bench
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When you are at Rome, live as Romans live.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Sir Roger on the Bench
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A little nonsense now and then
Is relished by the wisest men.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Sir Roger on the Bench
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And pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
Topic: Providence
Source: The Campaign
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See they suffer death,
But in their deaths remember they are men,
Strain not the laws to make their tortures grievous.
Topic: Punishment
Source: Cato (act III, sc. 5)
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Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the
one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the
other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive,
cherished, and confirmed.
Topic: Reading
Source: in the "Tatler", no. 147
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O ye powers that search
The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts,
If I have done amiss, impute it not!
The best may err, but you are good.
Topic: Repentance
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 4)
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From hence, let fierce contending nations know,
What dire effects from civil discord flow.
Topic: Results
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 4)
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It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.
Topic: Rivalry
Source: None
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