Kindle Notes & Highlights
The furious behaviour of an angry man is more likely to exasperate us against himself than against his enemies.
Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it.
A man is mortified when, after having endeavoured to divert the company, he looks round and sees that nobody laughs at his jests but himself.
When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading it to a companion.
On the contrary, we should be vexed if he did not seem to be entertained with it, and we could no longer take any pleasure in reading it to him.
Various memes about "when a friend shows you a youtube video" come to mind
To seem not to be affected with the joy of our companions is but want of politeness; but not to wear a serious countenance when they tell us their afflictions, is real and gross inhumanity.
it is scarce possible that we should make use of any other rule or canon but the correspondent affection in ourselves.
Disagree, one can be a hypocrite and still be right. The most wild and rage filled of men, who fly off at the slightest provocation, can still recognize that behaviour as inappropriate in others
Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.
Im really not sure I agree with this
and though it does not hinder them from conceiving a passion somewhat analogous to what is felt by the sufferer, hinders them from conceiving any thing that approaches to the same degree of violence.
Even the deepest felt empathy is felt for another and can never fully replicate how we feel or would feel for ourselves
Society and conversation, therefore, are the most powerful remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any time, it has unfortunately lost it; as well as the best preservatives of that equal and happy temper, which is so necessary to self-satisfaction and enjoyment.
As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.
and an intire insensibility to the fair sex, renders a man contemptible in some measure even to the men.
The passion appears to every body, but the man who feels it, entirely disproportioned to the value of the object;
It is not so much the love of Castalio and Monimia which attaches us in the Orphan, as the distress which that love occasions.
The amiableness of the character exasperates their sense of the atrocity of the injury.
Kill em with kindness. Highroad the bastards
No speculation of this kind, however, how deeply soever it might be rooted in the mind, could diminish our natural abhorrence for vice, whose immediate effects are so destructive, and whose remote ones are too distant to be traced by the imagination.
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Women, and men of weak nerves, tremble and are overcome with fear,
Stop yelling at people so much
how uneasy are we made when we go into a house in which jarring contention sets one half of those who dwell in it against the other;
When your friend,s parents yell at him when you're on a sleepover.
Our sorrow at a funeral generally amounts to no more than an affected gravity; but our mirth at a christening or a marriage, is always from the heart, and without any affectation.
Nature, it seems, when she loaded us with our own sorrows, thought that they were enough, and therefore did not command us to take any further share in those of others, than what was necessary to prompt us to relieve them.
It is because mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely with our joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty.
It is the misfortunes of Kings only which afford the proper subjects for tragedy. They resemble, in this respect, the misfortunes of lovers. Those two situations are the chief which interest us upon the theatre; because, in spite of all that reason and experience can tell us to the contrary, the prejudices of the imagination attach to these two states a happiness superior to any other.
If ever he hopes to distinguish himself, it must be by more important virtues. He must acquire dependants to balance the dependants of the great, and he has no other fund to pay them from, but the labour of his body, and the activity of his mind. He must cultivate these therefore: he must acquire superior knowledge in his profession, and superior industry in the exercise of it. He must be patient in labour, resolute in danger, and firm in distress. These talents he must bring into public view, by the difficulty, importance, and, at the same time, good judgment of his undertakings, and by the
...more
though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society,
Conservatism, belief in hierarchies
That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.
We desire both to be respectable and to be respected. We dread both to be contemptible and to be contemned.
Two different models, two different pictures, are held out to us, according to which we may fashion our own character and behaviour; the one more gaudy and glittering in its colouring; the other more correct and more exquisitely beautiful in its outline: the one forcing itself upon the notice of every wandering eye; the other, attracting the attention of scarce any body but the most studious and careful observer.
Don't stop I'm almost there. This guy is fluffing my ego hard
But the vice and folly must be very great, before they can operate this complete degradation.
Even their vices and follies are fashionable;
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unless he has been the cause of it from motives which we entirely go along with.
Which is why it is difficult to implement effective, smart, evidence based policy in regards to the poor: as pointed out in an earlier section we tend to despise the poor and thus not believe they are worthy of help.
we enter with more eagerness into all their schemes of vengeance,
Inglorious bastards
Of all the duties of a law-giver, however, this, perhaps, is that which it requires the greatest delicacy and reserve to execute with propriety and judgment. To neglect it altogether exposes the commonwealth to many gross disorders and shocking enormities, and to push it too far is destructive of all liberty, security, and justice.
There can be no proper motive for hurting our neighbour, there can be no incitement to do evil to another, which mankind will go along with, except just indignation for evil which that other has done to us. To disturb his happiness merely because it stands in the way of our own, to take from him what is of real use to him merely because it may be of equal or of more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at the expence of other people, the natural preference which every man has for his own happiness above that of other people, is what no impartial spectator can go along with.
Though every man may, according to the proverb, be the whole world to himself, to the rest of mankind he is a most insignificant part of it.
humble the arrogance of his self-love, and bring it down to something which other men can go along with.
All the members of human society stand in need of each others assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries.
When by natural principles we are led to advance those ends, which a refined and enlightened reason would recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God.
If he cannot restrain it by gentle and fair means, he must beat it down by force and violence, and at any rate must put a stop to its further progress.
Nazis
where there is perfect tranquillity there is scarce any thing which is not capable of amusing.
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The man who was altogether insensible to bodily pain, could deserve no applause from enduring the torture with the most perfect patience and equanimity. The man who had been created without the natural fear of death, could claim no merit from preserving his coolness and presence of mind in the midst of the most dreadful dangers.
The man who wants not to do evil could deserve no credit for being good
Many men behave very decently, and through the whole of their lives avoid any considerable degree of blame, who yet, perhaps, never felt the sentiment upon the propriety of which we found our approbation of their conduct, but acted merely from a regard to what they saw were the established rules of behaviour.
The happiness of mankind, as well as of all other rational creatures, seems to have been the original purpose intended by the Author of nature, when he brought them into existence.
we necessarily pursue the most effectual means for promoting the happiness of mankind, and may therefore be said, in some sense, to co-operate with the Deity, and to advance as far as in our power the plan of Providence.
and hence it is, that mankind are generally disposed to place great confidence in the probity of those who seem deeply impressed with religious sentiments.
That the sense of duty should be the sole principle of our conduct, is no where the precept of Christianity; but that it should be the ruling and the governing one, as philosophy, and as, indeed, common sense directs.
A benefactor thinks himself but ill requited, if the person upon whom he has bestowed his good offices, repays them merely from a cold sense of duty, and without any affection to his person.
A member of parliament who shews no keenness about his own election, is abandoned by his friends, as altogether unworthy of their attachment.
ambition; a passion, which when it keeps within the bounds of prudence and justice, is always admired in the world, and has even sometimes a certain irregular greatness, which dazzles the imagination,
Emperor of all Christiandom
Hence the general admiration for heroes and conquerors, and even for statesmen, whose projects have been very daring and extensive,
the defence of society requires that crimes should be punished, from whatever motives they proceed, yet a good man will always punish them with reluctance,
