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Date: 54 B.C.

"These charges, at first held in constant mind, from Theseus slipped away as clouds are impelled by the breath of the winds from the ethereal peak of a snow-clad mount."

— Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 - c. 54 B.C.)

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Date: 1691

"For wheresoe'r We look's an unknown Coast, / Our Mind perplex'd in endless Storms is tost; / And in th' Abyss all Wit and Learning lost."

— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)

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Date: 1712

"The Sun (when Summer-heats the Spring succeed) / Changes the tarnish'd Verdure of the Mead: / The dry'd up Rills no longer murmuring creep / O'er the smooth Pebbles, and invite to sleep, / But buzzing Insects make an uncouth Noise, / And sulph'rous Vapours thunder in the Skies. / So when the Hea...

— Cobb, Samuel (1675-1713); Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718); Quillet, Claudius (fl.1640-1656)

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Date: 1742

"While o'er my limbs Sleep's soft dominion spread, / What though my soul fantastic measures trod / O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom / Of pathless woods; or, down the craggy steep / Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool; / Or scaled the cliff; or danced on hollow winds, / W...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1751, 1777

"There seems here a necessity for confessing that the happiness and misery of others are not spectacles entirely indifferent to us; but that the view of the former, whether in its causes or effects, like sun-shine or the prospect of well-cultivated plains, (to carry our pretensions no higher), co...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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Date: 1770

"But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. / As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, / Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, / Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, / Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

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Date: 1771, 1776

"The mind untaught / 'Is a dark waste, where fiends and tempests howl; / 'As Phebus to the world, is Science to the soul."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

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Date: April, 1783

"Let an Hypochondriack then have his park well stocked. Let him get as many agreeable ideas into his mind as he can; and though there may in wintery days seem: a total vacancy, yet when summer glows benignant, and the time of singing of birds is come, he will be delighted with gay colours and enc...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: 1814, 1816, 1896

Ideas are "like the silent Snows, by Winter spread, / In silvery treasures, o'er the mountain's head; / Whose stores, while undisturb'd, each hour decay, / And hue, form, substance, quickly waste away; / But stirr'd, by winds, like words, with action strong, /Each sphere enlarges as it rolls alon...

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

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Date: 1820

"Hark, sister! what a low yet dreadful groan / Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart / Of the good Titan, as storms tear the deep, / And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves."

— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.