I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me. – Joseph Addison
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
True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of ones self, and in the next from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions. – Joseph Addison
Authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding places in a voluminous writer. – Joseph Addison
It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be. – James Baldwin