Joseph Addison Quotes

I am of the opinion that the appreciation and the desire for what is good takes more study and insight than does the understanding and test for the best music and art.

The exercise of criticism always destroys for a time our sensibility to beauty by leading us to regard the work in relation to certain laws of construction. The eye turns from the charms of nature to fix itself upon the servile dexterity of art.

The aesthetic serviceability of objects of beauty is not greatly nor universally heightened by possession.

I've always been very opinionated, for lack of a better term, about art. Not to sound too arrogant, but I guess I'm a connoisseur of telling people what I think is good and bad.

As readers, we remain in the nursery stage so long as we cannot distinguish between taste and judgment, so long, that is, as the only possible verdicts we can pass on a book are two: this I like; this I don't like. For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don't like it; I can see this is good and, though at present I don't like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see that this is trash but I like it; I can see that this is trash and I don't like it.

There are no bad books any more than there are ugly women.

To be a mere verbal critic is what no man of genius would be if he could; but to be a critic of true taste and feeling is what no man without genius could be if he would.

The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize.

That which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence of the Beautiful is nothing morethan earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it.

Taste consists in the power of judging; genius in the power of executing.

If the work of art is good enough, it must not be criticized for its theme. I don't think it can be argued.

The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art.

There are some readers who have never read an essay on taste; and if they take my advice they never will, for they can no more improve their taste by so doing than they could improve their appetite or digestion by studying a cookery-book.

Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment.

I just always think, 'Do I like it?' And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too.

A good taste is often unconscious; a just taste is always conscious.

Beauty is whatever anyone thinks is beautiful.

I opposed the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie. I read the book and took a critical distance. I did not think The Satanic Verses is a blasphemous book. I did not consider the book as being a great read, but as an intellectual I read, I assess, and I respond. I make a difference between true freedom of expression to which we owe a response and provocation, which we ignore.

Reasoning is never, like poetry, judged from the outside at all.

To think better, to think like the best humans, we are probably going to have to learn again to judge a person's intelligence, not by the ability to recite facts, but by the good order or harmoniousness of his or her surroundings. We must suspect that any statistical justification of ugliness and violence is a revelation of stupidity. (pg.192-193, People, Land, and Community)

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be, In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend; And if the means be just, the conduct true, Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.

In fact, all kinds of men, and not merely architects, can recognize a good piece of work.

Only the beautiful can acknowledge all that is beautiful, and only the ugly can acknowledge all that is ugly as being beautiful. Beauty is in the heart of the beholder.

Take nothing for granted as beautiful or ugly.

Distrust that man who tells you to distrust. He takes the measure of his own small soul, and thinks the world no larger.