Date: 1686, 1689, 1697
"Having spoken in the foregoing Chapter of the Improvements of the Mind by Erudition, it follows of Course that we speak of the Improvement of the Body by Exercise. Indeed a Vigorous and Athletick Habit of Body, doth extreamly advance the like Disposition and Ability in the Mind; Since all Intell...
preview | full record— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)
Date: 1691
"However chast his Body may be, his Mind is extreamly prolifick; his thoughts are a perfect Seraglio, and he, like a great Turk, begets thousands of little Infants--Remarks, Fancys, Fantasticks, Crochets and Whirligigs, on his wandring Intellect, and when once begot, they must be bred--so out he ...
preview | full record— Dunton, John (1659–1732)
Date: 1691
"So that here by a dear-bought Experience, I found, that the wandering Fancy of Man (nay, that even Life it self) is a it were but a meer Ramble or Fegary after the drag of something that doth itchifie our Senses, which when we have hunted home, we find nothing but a meer delusion."
preview | full record— Dunton, John (1659–1732)
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)