Date: 1709, 1714
"Nor is it a wonder that Men are generally such faint Reasoners, and care so little to argue strictly on any trivial Subject in Company; when they dare so little exert their Reason in greater Matters, and are forc'd to argue lamely, where they have need of the greatest Activity and Strength. The ...
preview | full record— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Date: 1710, 1714
The Parallel is easily made on the side of Writers. They have at least as much need of learning the several Motions, Counterpoises and Ballances of the Mind and Passions, as the other Students those of the Body and Limbs."
preview | full record— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Date: Monday, April 28, 1712
"This must certainly be a most charming Exercise to the Mind that is rightly turned for it."
preview | full record— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
Date: 1725-6
"'Tis hard, he cries, to bring to sudden sight / Ideas that have wing'd their distant flight."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744), Broome, W. and Fenton, E.
Date: Friday, January 15, 1725
"I have transplanted this good Custom [of looking back from rising ground while walking], from my Body, into my Mind; which I have, for some Years past, inur'd to make Pauses, now and then, in Life; and reckon over its past Stages, and the Uses I have adapted them to: And This I sometimes do, aft...
preview | full record— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)
Date: 1735-6
"His mental eye first launch'd into the deeps of boundless ether; where unnumber'd orbs, / Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky / Unerring roll, and wind their steady way."
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1737
"You see 'tis with weak heads as with weak stomachs, they immediately throw out what they received last; and what they read floats upon the surface of their mind, like oil upon water, without incorporating."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: January 1739
"The attention is on the stretch; the posture of the mind is uneasy; and the spirits being diverted from their natural course, are not governed in their movements by the same laws, at least not to the same degree, as when they flow in their usual channel."
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)