Date: 1751, 1777

"I am convinced, that, where men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have there given reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense, which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"The one [reason] discovers objects, as they really stand in nature, without addition or diminution: The other [taste] has a productive faculty, and gilding or staining all natural objects with the colours, borrowed from internal sentiment, raises, in a manner, a new creation."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"We may as well imagine, that minute wheels and springs, like those of a watch, give motion to a loaded wagon, as account for the origin of passion from such abstruse reflections."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"Who sees not that vengeance, from the force alone of passion, may be so eagerly pursued, as to make us knowingly neglect every consideration of ease, interest, or safety; and, like some vindictive animals, infuse our very souls into the wounds we give an enemy?"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"They [cruel ideas] still haunt his solitary hours, damp his most aspiring thoughts, and show him, even to himself, in the most contemptible and most odious colours imaginable."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"I suppose, if Cicero were now alive, it would be found difficult to fetter his moral sentiments by narrow systems; or persuade him, that no qualities were to be admitted as virtues, or acknowledged to be a part of personal merit, but what were recommended by The Whole Duty of Man."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: June 1751, 1752

"Thou [Eagle] servant of almighty JOVE, / Who, free and swift as thought, could'st rove / To the bleak north's extremest goal."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: June 1751, 1752

"Thou [Eagle] type of wit and sense confin'd, / Cramp'd by the oppressors of the mind, / Who study downward on the ground."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: w. 1749, 1751

"O Master of the heart whose magic skill / The close recesses of the Soul can find."

— Edwards, Thomas (d. 1757)

Date: 1751

"True philosophy was not known till that time; and it is but justice to say, that commencing from the last year of Cardinal Richelieu, and proceeding to those which immediately succeeded the death of Louis XIV. there came to pass in our arts, in our minds, in our manners, as well as in our govern...

— Arouet, François-Marie [known as Voltaire] (1694-1778)