Joseph Addison Quotes

When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again.

To know what virtue is is not enough; we must endeavor to possess and to practice it, or in some other manner actually ourselves to become good.

Never stop working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, until you see self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat.

Moral excellence is the bright consummate flower of all progress.

The superior man honors his virtuous nature, and maintains constant inquiry and study, seeking to carry it out to its breadth and greatness, so as to omit none of the more exquisite and minute points which it embraces, and to raise it to its greatest height and brilliancy.

It is not in everyone's power to secure wealth, office, or honors; but everyone may be good, generous, and wise.

There is no royal road or ready way to virtue.

As to virtue . . . it is an act of the will, a habit which increases the quantity, intensity and quality of life. It builds up, strengthens and vivifies personality.

And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us.

To be good, we must do good; and by doing good we take a sure means of being good, as the use and exercise of the muscles increase their power.

I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That's what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.

Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval.

Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim, wisdom the source of virtue, and of fame, obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed.

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere

Superior virtue must be the fruit of superior intelligence.

If you're going to spend your time, spend your time getting smarter.

The most important thing for my father was learning. Because nobody can take that away from you.

An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

Only by perfect virtue can the perfect path, in all its courses, be made a fact.

The wiser a man becomes, the more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.

The knowledge and experience which produce wisdom can only become a man's individual possession and property by his own free action; and it is as futile to expect these without laborious, painstaking effort, as it is to hope to gather a harvest where the seed has not been sown.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

Content not thyself that thou art virtuous in the general; for one link being wanting, the chain is defective.

These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.