Date: 1751, 1777

"But no passion, when well represented, can be entirely indifferent to us; because there is none, of which every man has not, within him, at least the seeds and first principles."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"On the other hand, were it doubtful, whether there were, implanted in our nature, any general principle of moral blame and approbation, yet when we see, in numberless instances, the influence of humanity, we ought thence to conclude, that it is impossible, but that every thing, which promotes th...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1777

"Nor will those reasoners, who so earnestly maintain the predominant selfishness of human kind, be any wise scandalized at hearing of the weak sentiments of virtue, implanted in our nature."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751

"This sentiment, rooted in the mind, is an antidote to all misfortune."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1751

"The necessity therefore of the influence of the brain and nerves towards producing muscular motion, is not to be disproved by a few rare instances of ossified, petrified, or otherwise morbid brains found in animals, which seemed tolerably healthy, and had the motion of all their muscles; since i...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: Saturday, December 21, 1751

"A careless glance upon a favourite author, or transient survey of the varieties of life, is sufficient to supply the first hint or seminal idea, which, enlarged by the gradual accretion of matter stored in the mind, is by the warmth of fancy easily expanded into flowers, and sometimes ripened in...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 12, 1751

"There are many diseases both of the body and mind, which it is far easier to prevent than to cure, and therefore I hope you will think me employed in an office not useless either to learning or virtue, if I describe the symptoms of an intellectual malady, which, though at first it seizes only th...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: March 24, 1752

"The Mind of Man is compared by Montaigne to a fertile Field, which tho' it be left entirely uncultivated, still retains all its genial Powers; but instead of producing any Thing lovely or profitable, sends forth only Weeds and wild Herbs of various Kinds, which serve to no Use or Emolument whats...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1753

"The knowledge of good is form'd in our souls, as the seeds are in the ground; there is a time when they lie conceal'd, a time when they spring forth, and a time when they bear fruit"

— Du Bosc, Jacques (d. 1660)

Date: 1754

"The human soul is so far from being furnished with forms and ideas to perceive all things by, or from being impregnated, I would rather say than printed over, with the seeds of universal knowledge, that we have no ideas till we receive passively the ideas of sensible qualities from without."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)