text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"A vast stock of ideas are treasured up in the memory, which it easily produces on various occasions.
(Part I, Proposition VIII, Solution, p. 23)",2011-09-15 17:15:00 UTC,"""A vast stock of ideas are treasured up in the memory, which it easily produces on various occasions.""",2011-09-15 17:15:00 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading in Google Books,19164,7094
"I then went to president Gemmingen's, where I heard music and danced and was gay. I have a weakness of mind which is scarcely credible. Here amidst music and dancing I am as cheerful as if nothing had ever vexed me. My mind is like an air-pump which receives and ejects ideas with wonderful facility. Munzesheim went home with me a little. I told him in confidence my proceedings with his sovereign as to the Order. He told me I would obtain it when I returned. I bid him speak plain. He assured me that I might depend upon having it. I supped at the Marshal's table, where I am much liked. It has been observed that the Grand Écuyer has spoken more to me than to any stranger. He is silent and backward. I have put him at his ease, led him to talk of horses, of which I am, by the by, completely ignorant. But I had address enough to make that conversation go well on.",2011-10-26 04:45:48 UTC,"""My mind is like an air-pump which receives and ejects ideas with wonderful facility.""",2011-10-26 04:45:48 UTC,"Friday, November 16, 1764","",,"","","Reading Travel Writing: 1700-1830, eds. Elizabeth A. Bohls and Ian Duncan (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005), 23-4.
",19301,7122
"A Man's House may be so fill'd with Furniture, that he shall want Room to stir; and a Man's Head may be so stuff'd with other People's Thoughts, that his own shall be stifled. But moderate Learning, and useful Labour, make a wise and virtuous People; for moderate Learning strengthens the Understanding, and useful Labour suppresses Vice. Too much Eating does not make a Man healthy, and too much Reading does not make him wise. Reflection is the Soul of Study.
(26)",2011-11-23 03:33:49 UTC,"""A Man's House may be so fill'd with Furniture, that he shall want Room to stir; and a Man's Head may be so stuff'd with other People's Thoughts, that his own shall be stifled.""",2011-11-23 03:33:49 UTC,"Of Wisdom, Learning, and Good Sense","",,Rooms,"",Searching in Google Books,19326,7128
"After the cursory view of Nature, which was concluded in my last Lecture, it may not be amiss to examine our own faculties, and see by what means we acquire and treasure up a knowledge of those things; and this is done, I apprehend, by means of the senses, the operations of the mind, and the memory; which last may be called the Storehouse of the understanding. The first time little Master is brought to a looking-glass he thinks he has found a new play-mate, and calls out, Little boy! Little boy! for having never seen his own face before, it is no wonder that he should not know it. Here is the idea, therefore, of something new acquired by sight. [...]
(VI, p. 100)",2012-01-25 20:24:54 UTC,"""After the cursory view of Nature, which was concluded in my last Lecture, it may not be amiss to examine our own faculties, and see by what means we acquire and treasure up a knowledge of those things; and this is done, I apprehend, by means of the senses, the operations of the mind, and the memory; which last may be called the Storehouse of the understanding.""",2012-01-24 17:46:40 UTC,Lecture VI,"",,Rooms,"",Reading in ECCO,19527,7176
"Whenever this shall be executed, it is to be looked upon as the work of true genius; but when fallen short of, as often happens, it is to be deemed the impotent effort of the hard-bound brains of low plagiaries, whose memory is filled with the shreds and ill-chosen scraps of other mens wit.
(p. 2)",2013-09-28 20:08:40 UTC,"""Whenever this shall be executed, it is to be looked upon as the work of true genius; but when fallen short of, as often happens, it is to be deemed the impotent effort of the hard-bound brains of low plagiaries, whose memory is filled with the shreds and ill-chosen scraps of other mens wit.""",2013-09-28 20:08:40 UTC,"","",,"","",ECCO-TCP,22885,7696
"In the latter passage, the most striking circumstances are selected to fill the mind with the grand and terrible. The former is a collection of minute and low circumstances, which scatter the thought and make no impression. The passage at the same time is full of verbal antitheses and low conceit, extremely improper in a scene of distress. But this last observation is made occasionally only, as it belongs not to the present subject.
(I.iv, p. 290)",2013-11-18 20:56:16 UTC,"""In the latter passage, the most striking circumstances are selected to fill the mind with the grand and terrible. The former is a collection of minute and low circumstances, which scatter the thought and make no impression.""",2013-11-18 20:56:16 UTC,"","",,Impressions,"",ECCO-TCP,23290,5107
"The natural rate of succession, depends also in some degree upon the particular perceptions that compose the train. An agreeable object, taking a strong hold of the mind, occasions a slower succession than when the objects are indifferent. Grandeur and novelty fix the attention for a considerable time, excluding all other ideas; and the mind thus occupied feels no vacuity. Some emotions, by hurrying the mind from object to object, accelerate the succession. Where the train is composed of connected objects, the succession is quick. For it is so ordered by nature, that the mind goes easily and sweetly along connected objects*. On the other hand, the succession must be slow where the train is composed of unconnected objects. An unconnected object, finding no ready access to the mind, requires time to make an impression. And that it is not admitted without a struggle, appears from the unsettled state of the mind for some moments after it is presented, wavering betwixt it and the former train. During this short period, one or other of the former objects will intrude, perhaps oftener than once, till the attention be fixt entirely upon the new object. The same observations are applicable to ideas suggested by language. The mind can bear a quick succession of related ideas. But an unrelated idea, for which the mind is not prepared, takes time to make a distinct impression; and therefore a train composed of such ideas, ought to proceed with a slow pace. Hence an epic poem, a play, or any story connected in all its parts, may be perused in a shorter time, than a book of maxims or apothegms, of which a quick succession creates both confusion and fatigue.
(I.ix, pp. 383-5)",2013-11-18 21:49:10 UTC,"""Grandeur and novelty fix the attention for a considerable time, excluding all other ideas; and the mind thus occupied feels no vacuity.""",2013-11-18 21:49:10 UTC,"","",,"","",ECCO-TCP,23299,5107
"Such latitude hath nature indulged in the rate of succession. What latitude it indulges with respect to uniformity we proceed to examine. The uniformity or variety of a train, so far as composed of external objects, depends on the particular objects that surround the percipient at the time. The present occupation must also have an influence; one is sometimes engaged in a multiplicity of affairs, sometimes altogether vacant. A natural train of ideas of memory is more circumscribed, each object being linked, by some connection, to what precedes and to what follows it. These connections, which are many and of different kinds, afford scope for a sufficient degree of variety; and at the same time prevent any excess that is unpleasant. Temper and constitution also have an influence here, as well as upon the rate of succession. A man of a calm and sedate temper, admits not willingly any idea but what is regularly introduced by a proper connection. One of a roving disposition embraces with avidity every new idea, however slender its relation be to those that go before it. Neither must we overlook the nature of the perceptions that compose the train; for their influence is not less with respect to uniformity and variety, than with respect to the rate of succession. The mind ingrossed by any passion, love or hatred, hope or fear, broods over its object, and can bear no interruption. In such a state, the train of perceptions must not only be slow, but extremely uniform. Anger newly inflamed eagerly grasps its object, and leaves not a cranny in the mind for another thought than of revenge. In the character of Hotspur, this state of mind is represented to the life; a picture remarkable for high colouring as well as for strictness of imitation: [...]
(I.ix, pp. 385-7; II, 218-9 in Liberty Fund ed.)",2013-11-18 21:52:12 UTC,"""In such a state, the train of perceptions must not only be slow, but extremely uniform. Anger newly inflamed eagerly grasps its object, and leaves not a cranny in the mind for another thought than of revenge.""",2013-11-18 21:52:12 UTC,"","",,"","",ECCO-TCP,23302,5107
"When the idol had done speaking, and the priestess had locked up its lungs with a key, observing almost all the company leaving the temple, I concluded the service was over, and taking my hat, was going to walk away with the crowd, when I was stopt by the man in black, who assured me that the ceremony had scarcely yet begun! What, cried I, do I not see almost the whole body of the worshippers leaving the church? Would you persuade me that such numbers who profess religion and morality, would in this shameless manner quit the temple before the service was concluded? you surely mistake; not even the Kalmouks would be guilty of such an indecency, tho' all the object of their worship was but a joint stool. My friend seemed to blush for his countrymen, assuring me that those whom I saw running away, were only a parcel of musical blockheads, whose passion was merely for sounds, and whose heads were as empty as a fiddle case; those who remain behind, says he, are the true Religious; they make use of music to warm their hearts, and to lift them to a proper pitch of rapture; examine their behaviour, and you will confess there are some among us who practise true devotion.
(I, p. 173)",2014-07-25 02:45:28 UTC,"""My friend seemed to blush for his countrymen, assuring me that those whom I saw running away, were only a parcel of musical blockheads, whose passion was merely for sounds, and whose heads were as empty as a fiddle case; those who remain behind, says he, are the true Religious; they make use of music to warm their hearts, and to lift them to a proper pitch of rapture; examine their behaviour, and you will confess there are some among us who practise true devotion.""",2014-07-25 02:45:28 UTC,LETTER XL. To the same,"",,"","",Searching in ECCO-TCP,24270,7982
"The difficulty of obtaining knowledge is universally confessed. To fix deeply in the mind the principles of science, to settle their limitations, and deduce the long succession of their consequences; to comprehend the whole compass of complicated systems, with all the arguments, objections, and solutions, and to reposite in the intellectual treasury the numberless facts, experiments, apophthegms, and positions which must stand single in the memory, and of which none has any perceptible connection with the rest, is a task which, tho' undertaken with ardour and pursued with diligence, must at last be left unfinished by the frailty of our nature.",2018-04-17 17:08:49 UTC,"""To fix deeply in the mind the principles of science, to settle their limitations, and deduce the long succession of their consequences; to comprehend the whole compass of complicated systems, with all the arguments, objections, and solutions, and to reposite in the intellectual treasury the numberless facts, experiments, apophthegms, and positions which must stand single in the memory, and of which none has any perceptible connection with the rest, is a task which, tho' undertaken with ardour and pursued with diligence, must at last be left unfinished by the frailty of our nature.""",2018-04-17 17:08:49 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. ,25173,8272