The Theory of Moral Sentiments

by Adam Smith

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,

But he appears to be more than mortal who can support in the same manner the most dreadful calamities.

That is why men and women like Victor Frankl and Harriet Tubman are seen as legends for the ability to be a beacon of hope to millions while simultaneously bearing with the worst of atrocities against mankind.

Cato, surrounded on all sides by his enemies, unable to resist them, disdaining to submit to them, and reduced, by the proud maxims of that age, to the necessity of destroying himself;

Seneca,

The weakness of sorrow never appears in any respect agreeable, except when it arises from what we feel for others more than from what we feel for ourselves.

The wages of the meanest labourer can supply them. We see that they afford him food and clothing, the comfort of a house, and of a family.

But vanity is always founded upon the belief of our being the object of attention and approbation.

for though to be overlooked, and to be disapproved of, are things entirely different, yet as obscurity covers us from the daylight of honour and approbation, to feel that we are taken no notice of, necessarily damps the most agreeable hope, and disappoints the most ardent desire, of human nature.

We would rather be looked on in disapproval than be simply ignored by all other people.

The man of rank and distinction, on the contrary, is observed by all the world. Every body is eager to look at him,

It is this, which, notwithstanding the restraint it imposes, notwithstanding the loss of liberty with which it is attended,

renders greatness the object of envy, and compensates, in the opinion of all those mortifications which must mankind, all that toil, all that anxiety, be undergone in the pursuit of it; and what is of yet more consequence, all that leisure, all that ease, all that careless security, which are forfeited for ever by the acquisition.

Every calamity that befals them, every injury that is done them, excites in the breast of the spectator ten times more compassion and resentment than he would have felt, had the same things happened to other men.

They resemble, in this respect, the misfortunes of lovers. Those two situations are the chief which interest us upon the theatre;

The traitor who conspires against the life of his monarch, is thought a greater monster than any other murderer.

Why John Wilkes Booth is the quintessential reviled adversary of freedom and democracy because he killed its paragon. He killed a sitting US president.

That kings are the servants of the people, to be obeyed, resisted, deposed, or punished, as the public conveniency may require, is the doctrine of reason and philosophy;

His air, his manner, his deportment, all mark that elegant and graceful sense of his own superiority, which those who are born to inferior stations can hardly ever arrive at.

The coxcomb, who imitates their manner, and affects to be eminent by the superior propriety of his ordinary behaviour, is rewarded with a double share of contempt for his folly and presumption.

Pompous and self-conceited people have an over inflated sense of importance to the people around them.

With what impatience does the man of spirit and ambition, who is depressed by his situation, look round for some great opportunity to distinguish himself?

'Love,' says my Lord Rochfaucault, 'is commonly succeeded by ambition; but ambition is hardly ever succeeded by love.'

It is upon this account that the most dreadful calamities are not always those which it is most difficult to support.

The first excite no sympathy; but the second, though they may excite none that approaches to the anguish of the sufferer,

very lively compassion. The sentiments of the spectators are, in this last case, less wide of those of the sufferer, and their imperfect fellow-feeling lends him some assistance in supporting his misery.

The judge who orders a criminal to be set in the pillory, dishonours him more than if he had condemned him to the scaffold.

To scourge a person of quality, or to set him in the pillory, upon account of any crime whatever, is a brutality of which no European government, except that of Russia, is capable.

'Great dangers,' says the Cardinal de Retz, 'have their charms, because there is some glory to be got, even when we miscarry.

To deserve, to acquire, and to enjoy the respect and admiration of mankind, are the great objects of ambition and emulation.

proud ambition and ostentatious avidity.

humble modesty and equitable justice.

attracting the attention of scarce any body but the most studious and careful observer. They are the wise and the virtuous chiefly, a select, though, I am afraid, but a small party, who are the real and steady admirers of wisdom and virtue.

depend, not upon the esteem of intelligent and well-informed equals, but upon the fanciful and foolish favour of ignorant, presumptuous, and proud superiors;

foolish thing called a man of fashion, are commonly more admired than the solid and masculine virtues of a warrior, a statesman, a philosopher, or a legislator.

'Whenever your majesty's father,' said the old warrior and statesman, 'did me the honour to consult me, he ordered the buffoons of the court to retire into the antechamber.'

In many governments the candidates for the highest stations are above the law; and, if they can attain the object of their ambition, they have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it.

This is true even in democratic governments where “politicking” has become its own occupation. Politicians hire such spoken as fixers who make problems and potentially libel vices all but disappear. Even making certain “problem” conveniently vanish or end their murmuring. (e.g. the Clinton family)

They often endeavour, therefore, not only by fraud and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal; but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enormous crimes, by murder and assassination, by rebellion and civil war, to supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their greatness.

He invokes in vain the dark and dismal powers of forgetfulness and oblivion.

it. Amidst all the gaudy pomp of the most ostentatious greatness;

amidst the venal and vile adulation of the great and of the learned;

amidst the more innocent, though more foolish, acclamations of the common people; amidst all the pride of conquest a...

while glory seems to surround him on all sides, he himself, in his own imagination, sees black and foul infamy fast pursuing him, and every moment ready to overtake him from behind.

Beware the Ides of March and beware the specter of your ancient enemies who don’t forget your transgressions against them.

as he had lived long enough both for nature and for glory, he was contented to die, and therefore despised all conspiracies.

But the man who felt himself the object of such deadly resentment, from those whose favour he wished to gain, and whom he still wished to consider as his friends,

had certainly lived too long for real glory; or for all the happiness which he could ever hope to enjoy in th...

Merit and Demerit,

But if he had the least spark of justice, which, though this passion is not very favourable to virtue, he might still have, it would hurt him excessively to have been himself, even without design, the occasion of this misfortune.

or even be brought to the scaffold upon account of some other crime, though it might sooth our hatred, it would not fully gratify our resentment.

Resentment cannot be fully gratified, unless the offender is not only made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve for that particular wrong which we have suffered from him.

Our heart, as it adopts and beats time to his grief, so is it likewise animated with that spirit by which he endeavours to drive away or destroy the cause of it.

We are rejoiced to see him attack his adversary in his turn, and are eager and ready to assist him whenever he exerts himself for defence, or even for vengeance within a certain degree.

When an inhuman murderer is brought to the scaffold, though we have some compassion for his misery, we can have no sort of fellow-feeling with his resentment, if he should be so absurd as to express any against either his prosecutor or his judge.

The natural tendency of their just indignation against so vile a criminal is indeed the most fatal and ruinous to him.