Date: 1759

"The man who eludes our most innocent questions, who gives no satisfaction to our most inoffensive inquiries, who plainly wraps himself up in impenetrable obscurity, seems, as it were, to build a wall about his breast."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"How amiable does he appear to be, whose sympathetic heart seems to re-echo all the sentiments of those with whom he converses, who grieves for their calamities, who re|sents their injuries, and who rejoices at their good fortune!"

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"But he can only hope to obtain this by lowering his passion to that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of going along with him. He must flatten, if I may be allowed to say so, the sharpness of its natural tone, in order to reduce it to harmony and concord with the emotions of those who a...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"When music imitates the modulations of grief or joy, it either actually inspires us with those passions, or at least puts us in the mood which disposes us to conceive them. But when it imitates the notes of anger, it inspires us with fear. Joy, grief, love, admiration, devotion, are all of them ...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"There is, in the very feeling of those passions, something harsh, jarring, and convulsive, something that tears and distracts the breast, and is altogether destructive of that composure and tranquillity of mind which is so necessary to happiness, and which is best promoted by the contrary passio...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"They forget, for a time, their infirmities, and abandon themselves to those agreeable ideas and emotions to which they have long been strangers, but which, when the presence of so much happiness recalls them to their breast, take their place there, like old acquaintance, from whom they are sorry...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"Our heart, as it adopts and beats time to his grief, so is it likewise animated with that spirit by which he endeavours to drive away or destroy the cause of it."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"To see the emotions of their hearts, in every respect, beat time to his own, in the violent and disagreeable passions, constitutes his sole consolation."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"Our heart must adopt the principles of the agent, and go along with all the affections which influenced his conduct, before it can intirely sympathize with, and beat time to, the gratitude of the person who has been benefited by his actions."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)