Joseph Addison

"Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in proper figures."

"Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express."

"... when I see kings lying by those who deposed them,... or holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind."

"What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities."

"There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice."

"There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty."

"Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves."

"What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."

"We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would no end of them."- On the Right Use of Time"