Date: Saturday, May 24, 1712

"Chearfulness bears the same friendly regard to the Mind as to the Body: It banishes all anxious Care and Discontent, sooths and composes the Passions, and keeps the Soul in a Perpetual Calm."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, May 31, 1712

"The Creation is a perpetual Feast to the Mind of a good Man, every thing he sees chears and delights him; Providence has imprinted so many Smiles on Nature, that it is impossible for a Mind, which is not sunk in more gross and sensual Delights, to take a Survey of them without several secret Sen...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Wednesday, June 4, 1712

"It fills the Imagination with an Assemblage of such Ideas and Pictures as are hardly any thing but Shade, such as Night, the Devil, &c. These Portraitures very near over-power the Light of the Understanding, almost benight the Faculties, and give that melancholy Tincture to the most sanguine Com...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Thursday, June 5, 1712

"It is for this Reason that the short Speeches, or Sentences which we often meet with in Histories, make a deeper Impression on the Mind of the Reader, than the most laboured Strokes in a well-written Tragedy."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 7, 1712

"I shall endeavour, therefore, to lay down some Rules for the Discovery of those Vices that lurk in the secret Corners of the Soul, and to show my Reader those Methods by which he may arrive at a true and impartial Knowledge of himself."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 7, 1712

"We should always act with great Cautiousness and Circumspection in Points, where it is not impossible that we may be deceived. Intemperate Zeal, Bigotry and Persecution for any Party or Opinion, how praiseworthy soever they may appear to weak Men of our own Principles, produce infinite Calamitie...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 7, 1712

"In these and the like Cases, a Man's Judgment is easily perverted, and a wrong Bias hung upon his Mind. These are the Inlets of Prejudice, the unguarded Avenues of the Mind, by which a thousand Errors and secret Faults find Admission, without being observed or taken Notice of."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 7, 1712

"There is nothing of greater Importance to us than thus diligently to sift our Thoughts, and examine all these dark Recesses of the Mind, if we would establish our Souls in such a solid and substantial Virtue as will turn to Account in that great Day, when it must stand the Test of infinite Wisdo...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 14, 1712

"There is something so pathetick in this kind of Diction, that it often sets the Mind in a Flame, and makes our Hearts burn within us."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 14, 1712

"[Music] lengthens out every Act of Worship, and produces more lasting and permanent Impressions in the Mind, than those which accompany any transient Form of Words that are uttered in the ordinary Method of Religious Worship."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)