Date: 1748, 1754

"For if Virtue is something that deserves our Esteem and Love, then it must exist before Conscience is exerted, or gives its Testimony."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"At least we generally esteem [Neatness, Cleanliness, and Decency, to which we may add Dignity of Countenance, and Demeanour] Indications of an orderly, genteel, and well-governed Mind, conscious of inward Worth, or the Respect due to one's Nature."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

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

"In this Light, the Administration itself, nay, every Act of it, becomes an Object of Affection, the Evil disappears, or is converted into a Balm which both heals and nourishes the Mind."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"He, therefore, who is provided with such Armour, taken, if we may say so, from the Armory of Heaven, may be proof against the sharpest Arrows of Fortune, and defy the Impotence of human Malice; and though he cannot be secure against those Ills which are the ordinary Appendages of Man's Lot, yet ...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"And indeed the Practice of it is generally its own Reward; by expelling from the Mind the most dreadful Intruders upon its Repose, those rancorous Passions which are begot and nursed by Resentment, and by disarming and even subduing every Enemy one has, except such as have nothing left of Men bu...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"The Mind still pushing onwards and increasing its Stock of Ideas, ascends from those to an higher Species of Objects, viz. the Order and Mutual Relations of Minds to each other, their reciprocal Affections, Characters, Actions, and various Aspects."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"These Objects, or the Images of them, passing in review before the Mind, do, by a necessary Law of our Nature, call forth another and nobler Set of Affections, as Admiration, Esteem, Love, Honour, Gratitude, Benevolence, and others of the like Tribe."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"A very slight Inspection into human Nature suggests to us, that no kind of Objects make so powerful an Impression on us as those which are immediately impressed on our Senses, or strongly painted on our Imaginations."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"[W]ere the Mind entirely under the Direction of Sense, and impressible only by such Objects as are present, and strike some of the outward Organs, we should then be precisely in the State of the Brute-Creation, and be governed solely by Instinct or Appetite, and have no Power to controul whateve...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)