Date: 1734

"Mean-time the Body, which we study to soak in Pleasure like a Sponge, is of it self but a mere dead Husk, and drops off at last: and a Man reckons upon it no farther, than as a Machine for bringing him Pleasure, and would sometimes be content to change it for another Body, if he could, and does ...

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: January 1739

"The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742

"Socrates, and other ancients, seem to have had particular pleasure in running a parallel between agriculture and the improvement of the mind: But in no respect does the comparison or likeness hold more exactly than in this, that as the ground must be properly prepared for the reception and nouri...

— Turnbull, George (1698-1748)

Date: 1742

"Instruction will be but thrown away, it cannot sink into the mind, or take firm root there, so as to fructify, if the mind be not pure and clean, pliable, or docile and open to truth and knowledge, but will quickly be chocked by the opposite illiberal temperature"

— Turnbull, George (1698-1748)

Date: 1742

"The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1745

"I would rather compare it [the mind] to a Seed, which contains all the Stamina of the future Plant, and all those Principles of Perfection, to which it aspires in its After-growth, and regularly arrives by gradual Stages, unless it is obstructed in its Progress by external Violence."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1777

"The passion for philosophy, like that for religion, seems liable to this inconvenience, that, though it aims at the correction of our manners, and extirpation of our vices, it may only serve, by imprudent management, to foster a predominant inclination, and push the mind, with more determined re...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"Reverse, in any considerable circumstance, the condition of men: Produce extreme abundance or extreme necessity: Implant in the human breast perfect moderation and humanity, or perfect rapaciousness and malice: By rendering justice totally useless, you thereby totally destroy its essence, and su...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"The dilemma seems obvious: As justice evidently tends to promote public utility and to support civil society, the sentiment of justice is either derived from our reflecting on that tendency, or like hunger, thirst, and other appetites, resentment, love of life, attachment to offspring, and other...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"But no passion, when well represented, can be entirely indifferent to us; because there is none, of which every man has not, within him, at least the seeds and first principles."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)