Date: Saturday, April 14, 1750
"He therefore that would govern his actions by the laws of virtue, must regulate his thoughts by those of reason; he must keep guilt from the recesses of his heart, and remember that the pleasures of fancy, and the emotions of desire, are more dangerous as they are more hidden, since they escape ...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750
"When we have heated our zeal in a cause, and elated our confidence with success, we are naturally inclined to persue the same train of reasoning, to establish some collateral truth, to remove some adjacent difficulty, and to take in the whole comprehension of our system. As a prince in the ardou...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1751, 1777
"The happiness of mankind, the order of society, the harmony of families, the mutual support of friends, are always considered as the result of their gentle dominion over the breasts of men."
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Date: 1751, 1777
"Love itself, which can subsist under treachery, ingratitude, malice, and infidelity, is immediately extinguished by it, when perceived and acknowledged; nor are deformity and old age more fatal to the dominion of that passion."
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Date: 1751, 1777
"Another spring of our constitution, that brings a great addition of force to moral sentiment, is, the love of fame; which rules, with such uncontrolled authority, in all generous minds, and is often the grand object of all their designs and undertakings."
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Date: 1751
"The imagination is thereby kept within bounds, and under due subjection to sense and reason."
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: 1751
"We first consider the nature of that act of the mind, which is termed belief; of which the immediate foundation is the testimony of our senses."
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: 1751
"It remains, therefore, that the motions performed by us, in consequence of an irritation, are owing to the original constitution of our frame, and law of union established by the all-wise Creator between the soul and body, whereby the former, immediately and without any exercise of reason, endea...
preview | full record— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)
Date: January 3, 1750-51, 1807
"It is the privilege of the good, to establish their empire in the hearts of their dependents; this is the triumph of my dear Mr. Richardson; and then indeed does his excellent heart exult, when he sees every one the happier and better for their connexion with him!"
preview | full record— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)
Date: Tuesday, March 12, 1751
"[T]hey therefore flattered his vanity, applauded his discoveries, and listened with submissive modesty to his lectures on the uncertainty of inclination, the weakness of resolves, and the instability of temper, to his account of the various motives which agitate the mind, and his ridicule of the...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)