“Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below.”

— Joseph Addison, "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day" (1692)

About Joseph Addison

1672 – 1719

English essayist, poet and politician, co-founder of 'The Spectator' and author of the tragedy 'Cato' (1713).

“And such a friendship ends not but with life.”

“'Tis not in mortals to command success, but we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it.”

“True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise.”

“Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.”

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”

“A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images.”

“A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.”

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient.”

“It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them.”