page 1 of 5     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1665

"Which last Expression suits very well with the present case, since, when a pious Soul is once got upon the wing of Contemplation, she must descend and stoop to exchange her converse with Heavenly objects, for one with Earthly vanities, and much more must she debase and degrade her self, if the t...

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

preview | full record

Date: 1693

"Musick alone inflames my drooping Mind; / Nay, she would mount her Wings, and fly away, / Not be confin'd to this dull Lump of Clay, / Did not the Charms of Musick most divine / Unite, and things so wide, so close combine."

— Hawkshaw, Benjamin (1671/2-1738)

preview | full record

Date: 1700

"My Thoughts should like their Silver Fishes shine, / With quick, bright glitterings thro' each moving line."

— Hopkins, John (b. 1675)

preview | full record

Date: May 10, 1704

"But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others,...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

preview | full record

Date: 1704

"For, it is the opinion of choice virtuosi, that the brain is only a crowd of little animals, but with teeth and claws extremely sharp, and therefore cling together in the contexture we behold, like the picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like bees in perpendicular swarm upon a tr...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

preview | full record

Date: 1704

"Others rather believe there is a perpetual game at leap-frog between both, and sometimes the flesh is uppermost, and sometimes the spirit; adding that the former, while it is in the state of a rider, wears huge Rippon spurs, and when it comes to the turn of be...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

preview | full record

Date: May 10, 1704

"And whereas the mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, does never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low, of good and evil, his first flight of fancy commonly transports him to ideas of what is most perfect, finished, and exalted, till, having...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

preview | full record

Date: May 10, 1704

"Whether a tincture of malice in our natures makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its reverse, or whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity under shade and darkness, or whe...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

preview | full record

Date: May 10, 1704

"It would be a mighty advantage accruing to the public from this inquiry that all these would very much excel and arrive at great perfection in their several kinds, which I think is manifest from what I have already shown, and shall enforce by this one plain instance, that even I myself, the auth...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

preview | full record

Date: 1709

"Complex Ideas are the Creatures of the Mind"

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

preview | full record

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