Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.
Joseph AddisonRead
If gratitude, when exerted towards another, naturally produces a very pleasing sensation in the mind of a grateful man, it exalts the soul into rapture when it is employed on this great object of gratitude to the beneficent Being who has given us everything we already possess, and from whom we expect everything we yet hope for.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Gratitude towards others elevates the soul, especially when directed towards a higher power.
This quote emphasizes the profound impact of gratitude, suggesting that when a person extends gratitude to others, it brings joy to their mind. However, when this same gratitude is directed towards a higher being who has provided everything, it transcends ordinary appreciation and elevates the spirit to a state of deep joy and fulfillment, reinforcing the importance of recognizing a greater source of blessings.
Themes
GratitudeBlessingsSoulAppreciationHigher Power
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of gratitude in our lives.
More from Joseph Addison
All quotes →Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.
Joseph AddisonRead
Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.
Joseph AddisonRead
Admiration is a very short lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it still be fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.
Joseph AddisonRead
It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.
Joseph AddisonRead
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
Joseph AddisonRead
Similar quotes
No human beings more dangerous than those who have suffered for a belief: the great persecutors are recruited from the martyrs not quite beheaded. Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.
Emile M. CioranRead
Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky.
George CarlinRead
There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year.
Daniel EllsbergRead
A man who causes fear cannot be _x000D_ free from fear.
EpicurusRead
The moral of the story is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around.
Kurt VonnegutRead
Everything is what it is, that's all. If we keep attaching meanings and mysteries to everything we perceive, everything we see that is, and to everything that goes on inside us, we are bound to go crazy sooner or later, I thought.
Thomas BernhardRead