Date: 1742

"What satisfaction, when he looks within, to find the most turbulent passions tuned to just harmony and concord, and every jarring sound banished from this enchanting music!"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1743

"Sound was the Body, and the Soul serene; / Like two sweet Instruments ne'er out of Tune, / That play their several Parts."

— Blair, Robert (1699-1746)

Date: 1748, 1754

"He will learn to transfer the Numbers of Poetry to the Harmony of the Mind, and of well-governed Passions."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"For, being now destitute of that Counter-poise which held them at a due pitch, they grow turbulent, peevish, and revengeful, the Cause of constant Restlessness and Torment, sometimes flying out into a wild delirious Joy, at other times settling into a deep splenetic Grief. The Concert between Re...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1751, 1777

"He must here, therefore, depart from his private and particular situation, and must chuse a point of view, common to him with others: He must move some universal principle of the human frame, and touch a string, to which all mankind have an accord and symphony."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1759

"This happy composure, this perfect and complete harmony of soul, constituted that virtue which in their language is expressed by a word which we commonly translate temperance, but which might more properly be translated good temper, or sobriety and moderation of mind."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"The spectator, therefore, must find it much more difficult to sympathize entirely, and keep perfect time, with his sorrow, than thoroughly to enter into his joy, and must depart much further from his own natural and ordinary temper of mind in the one case than in the other."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"The great pleasure of conversation, and indeed of society, arises from a certain correspondence of sentiments and opinions, from a certain harmony of minds, which like so many musical instruments coincide and keep time with one another."

— 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)