Date: 1700

"It is true, that the word Baptism is often taken in a Figurative and Allegorical Sense, to mean the INWARD BAPTISM, the Washing, or Cleansing of the Heart: But so is the word Washing also, as often, as Jer. iv. 14. &c. And there is scarce a Word in the World but is capable of many Figurative an...

— Leslie, Charles (1650-1722)

Date: 1701, 1704

"The application of our Thoughts to other Subjects is like looking upon the Rays of the Sun as it shines to us from a Wall, or upon the Image of it as it returns from a Watry Mirrour, but this is looking up directly against the Fons veri lucidus, the bright Source of Intellectual Light a...

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

Date: Saturday, July 28, 1750

"Thus in time want is enlarged without bounds; an eagerness for increase of possessions deluges the soul, and we sink into the gulphs of insatiability, only because we do not sufficiently consider, that all real need is very soon supplied, and all real danger of its invasion easily precluded."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, September 15, 1750

"The attention is dissipated by variety, and acts more weakly upon any single part, as that torrent may be drawn off to different channels, which, pouring down in one collected body, cannot be resisted."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, September 29, 1750

"Nor is it necessary, that, to feel this uneasiness, the mind should be extended to any great diffusion of generosity, or melted by uncommon warmth of benevolence; for that prudence which the world teaches, and a quick sensibility of private interest, will direct us to shun needless enmities; sin...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, April 7, 1750

"He would, upon the trial, have been soon convinced, that the fountain of content must spring up in the mind: and that he who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the gr...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, November 17, 1750

"[F]or most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them, roll down any torrent of custom in which they happen to be caught, or bend to any importunity that bears hard against them."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, December 1, 1750

"He that is angry without daring to confess his resentment, or sorrowful without the liberty of telling his grief; is too frequently inclined to give vent to the fermentations of his mind at the first passages that are opened, and to let his passions boil over upon those whom accident throws in h...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, April 14, 1750

"This inquiry seems to have been neglected for want of remembering, that all action has its origin in the mind, and that therefore to suffer the thoughts to be vitiated, is to poison the fountains of morality."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750

"Some of these instructors of mankind have not contented themselves with checking the overflows of passion, and lopping the exuberance of desire, but have attempted to destroy the root as well as the branches; and not only to confine the mind within bounds, but to smooth it for ever by a dead calm."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)