Date: w. January 24, 1789

"Your dear idea reigns, and reigns alone; / Each thought intoxicated homage yields, / And riots wanton in forbidden fields."

— Burns, Robert (1759-1796)

Date: 1789, 1800

"On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely labors, / That, like th'old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours."

— Burns, Robert (1759-1796)

Date: 1789, 1800

"Human Nature's his show-box--your friend, would you know him? / Pull the string, Ruling Passion--the picture will show him."

— Burns, Robert (1759-1796)

Date: 1789, 1800

"Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe, / And think Human Nature they truly describe"

— Burns, Robert (1759-1796)

Date: 1790

"The imagination of the spectator throws upon it either the one colour or the other, according either to his habits of thinking, or to the favour or dislike which he may bear to the person whose conduct he is considering."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"But though man has, in this manner, been rendered the immediate judge of mankind, he has been rendered so only in the first instance; and an appeal lies from his sentence to a much higher tribunal, to the tribunal of their own consciences, to that of the supposed impartial and well-informed spec...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"The jurisdiction of the man without is founded altogether in the desire of actual praise, and in the aversion to actual blame. The jurisdiction of the man within is founded altogether in the desire of praiseworthiness, and in the aversion to blameworthiness; in the desire of possessing those qua...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"In such cases, this demigod within the breast appears, like the demigods of the poets, though partly of immortal, yet partly too of mortal extraction. When his judgments are steadily and firmly directed by the sense of praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, he seems to act suitably to his divine ...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"But though the approbation of his own conscience can scarce, upon some extraordinary occasions, content the weakness of man; though the testimony of the supposed impartial spectator of the great inmate of the breast cannot always alone support him; yet the influence and authority of this princip...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"The man within immediately calls to us, that we value ourselves too much and other people too little, and that, by doing so, we render ourselves the proper object of the contempt and indignation of our brethren."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)