Literary notes about sentiments (AI summary)
In literature, the term "sentiments" often encapsulates a wide range of emotional states and inner impressions, serving as both indicators of personal virtue and as reflections of broader social or philosophical principles. Authors have used it to denote the deep, sometimes idealized feelings that influence character, such as youthful generosity or patriotism ([1], [2]), while also employing it to articulate more nuanced moral and intellectual attitudes toward life’s dilemmas ([3], [4]). At times, sentiments are portrayed as mutable states—subject to alteration by external events or internal reasoning ([5], [6])—and on other occasions they are indispensable to the crafting of characters whose thoughts and actions are inseparable from their emotional lives ([7], [8]). Whether discussing the intimate expressions of personal affection ([9], [10]) or the collective mood that defines a society ([11], [12]), the word "sentiments" functions in literary contexts as a versatile vehicle for exploring the complexities of the human heart and mind.
- young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every respect.'
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson by James Boswell - These magnanimous sentiments were supported by the vigor of his actions.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - Views and sentiments, so opposite to known truth and to each other, could never have place, at the same time, in the same person.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume - But his internal sentiments are more regulated by the personal characters of men, than by the accidental and capricious favours of fortune.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume - The sentiments I had hitherto formed on this subject were extremely elevated, but altogether imaginary.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Fabius rejoined the army with sentiments not in the least changed by what had happened, but rather fixed still more immovably on his original policy.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius - Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation of the sentiments and affections.
— from Hard Times by Charles Dickens - I liked romances which abounded with high-flown sentiments.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - I desired her to write freely and naturally her sentiments to Madam d’Epinay.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - I easily forget my misfortunes, but I cannot forget my faults, and still less my virtuous sentiments.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - And let every one that loves me be of my sentiments in these dispositions, which none that hath an affection for me will abrogate.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus - Although General d’Épinay served under Napoleon, did he not still retain royalist sentiments?
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
