Date: 1748, 1777

"And though these researches may appear painful and fatiguing, it is with some minds as with some bodies, which being endowed with vigorous and florid health, require severe exercise, and reap a pleasure from what, to the generality of mankind, may seem burdensome and laborious."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1777

"Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must needs be delightful and rejoicing."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1777

"It is remarkable concerning the operations of the mind, that, though most intimately present to us, yet, whenever they become the object of reflection, they seem involved in obscurity; nor can the eye readily find those lines and boundaries, which discriminate and distinguish them."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1777

"But a late Philosopher has taught us, by the most convincing Arguments, that Morality is nothing in the abstract Nature of Things, but is entirely relative to the Sentiment or mental Taste of each particular Being; in the same Manner as the Distinctions of sweet and bitter, hot and cold, arise f...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1777

"Our mental vision or conception of ideas is nothing but a revelation made to us by our Maker."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1747-8

"But the over-refinement of Platonic sentiments always sinks into the dross and feces of that Passion"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"If it were only, that I can see this man without losing any of that dignity (what other word can I use, speaking of myself, that betokens decency, and not arrogance?) which is so necessary to enable me to look up, or rather, with the mind's eye, I may say, to l...

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"Which, by recording the principal circumstances of past facts, and laying them close together, in a continued narration, kept the mind from languishing, and gave constant exercise to its reflections."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1748, 1777

"As nature has taught us the use of our limbs, without giving us the knowledge of the muscles and nerves, by which they are actuated; so has she implanted in us an instinct, which carries forward the thought in a correspondent course to that which she has established among external objects; thoug...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1777

"If we anatomize all the other reasonings of this nature, we shall find that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect, and that this relation is either near or remote, direct or collateral."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)