A Quote by Joseph Addison

A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.

Joseph Addison

Quote Topics

Disposition Former Fortune Gift Gold Good Latter More Nature Than Valuable

Quote Author

Joseph Addison
English - Writer
May 1, 1672 - June 17, 1719

A good disposition I far prefer to gold; for gold is the gift of fortune; goodness of disposition is the gift of nature. I prefer much rather to be called good than fortunate.

Plautus

The difference between talent and genius is this: while the former usually develops some special branch of our faculties, the latter commands them all. When the former is combined with tact, it is often more than a match for the latter.

Benjamin Disraeli

Love is priceless. And all I really want is a good night kiss. So if tears were diamonds, more valuable gold, then a fortune in the corners of my eyes I would hold.

Drew Chadwick

Good culture is born of a good disposition; and since the cause is more to be praised than the effect, I will rather praise a good disposition without culture, than good culture without the disposition.

Leonardo da Vinci

Men's minds are as variant as their faces. Where the motives of their actions are pure, the operation of the former is no more to be imputed to them as a crime, than the appearance of the latter; for both, being the work of nature, are alike unavoidable.

George Washington

If mythic violence is lawmaking, divine violence is law-?destroying; if the former sets boundaries, the latter boundlessly destroys them; if mythic violence brings at once guilt and retribution, divine power only expiates; if the former threatens, the latter strikes; if the former is bloody, the latter is lethal without spilling blood

Walter Benjamin

The progress of science has always been the result of a close interplay between our concepts of the universe and our observations on nature. The former can only evolve out of the latter and yet the latter is also conditioned greatly by the former. Thus in our exploration of nature, the interplay between our concepts and our observations may sometimes lead to totally unexpected aspects among already familiar phenomena.

Tsung-Dao Lee

A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune.

Andrew Carnegie

What is the cause that one is hardened, and another readily moved to compunction? Listen! It springs from the will, in the latter case a good will, in the former an evil one. It springs also from the thoughts, in the former case evil thoughts, in the latter from the opposite; and similarly from actions, in the former case actions contrary to God, in the latter godly ones... it is by free choice of the will that every person either attains compunction and humility, or else becomes hard-hearted and proud.

Symeon the New Theologian

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.

Blaise Pascal

Human nature is so constituted that insults sink deeper than kindnesses; the remembrance of the latter soon passes away, while that of the former is treasured in the memory.

Seneca the Younger

For when is death not within our selves? And as Heracleitus says: “Living and dead are the same, and so are awake and asleep, young and old. The former when shifted are the latter, and again the latter when shifted are the former."

Heraclitus

A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Teachers, who educate children, deserve more honour than parents, who merely gave them birth; for the latter provided mere life, while the former ensure a good life.