Now I assert, that when a sympathy with uneasiness is weak, it produces hatred or contempt by the former cause; when strong, it produces love or tenderness by the latter.
 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1738). copy citation

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Author David Hume
Source A Treatise of Human Nature
Topic contempt tenderness
Date 1738
Language English
Reference
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Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4705/4705-h/4705-h.htm

Context

“I have mentioned two different causes, from which a transition of passion may arise, viz, a double relation of ideas and impressions, and what is similar to it, a conformity in the tendency and direction of any two desires, which arise from different principles. Now I assert, that when a sympathy with uneasiness is weak, it produces hatred or contempt by the former cause; when strong, it produces love or tenderness by the latter. This is the solution of the foregoing difficulty, which seems so urgent; and this is a principle founded on such evident arguments, that we ought to have established it, even though it were not necessary to the explication of any phaenomenon.
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