Date: 1790

"Their view calls off his attention from his own view; and his breast is, in some measure, becalmed the moment they come into his presence. This effect is produced instantaneously and, as it were, mechanically; but, with a weak man, it is not of long continuance."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"His own view of his situation immediately recurs upon him. He abandons himself, as before, to sighs and tears and lamentations; and endeavours, like a child that has not yet gone to school, to produce some sort of harmony between his own grief and the compassion of the spectator, not by moderati...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"He has never dared to suffer the man within the breast to be absent one moment from his attention."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"With the eyes of this great inmate he has always been accustomed to regard whatever relates to himself."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"In proportion to the degree of the self-command which is necessary in order to conquer our natural sensibility, the pleasure and pride of the conquest are so much the greater; and this pleasure and pride are so great that no man can be altogether unhappy who completely enjoys them."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"Misery and wretchedness can never enter the breast in which dwells complete self-satisfaction; and though it may be too much, perhaps, to say, with the Stoics, that, under such an accident as that above mentioned, the happiness of a wise man is in every respect equal to what it could have been u...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"He does not, in this case, perfectly identify himself with the ideal man within the breast, he does not become himself the impartial spectator of his own conduct."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"He soon identifies himself with the ideal man within the breast, he soon becomes himself the impartial spectator of his own situation."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"The man within the breast, the abstract and ideal spectator of our sentiments and conduct, requires often to be awakened and put in mind of his duty, by the presence of the real spectator: and it is always from that spectator, from whom we can expect the least sympathy and indulgence, that we ar...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"When he is at hand, when he is present, the violence and injustice of our own selfish passions are sometimes sufficient to induce the man within the breast to make a report very different from what the real circumstances of the case are capable of authorising."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)