Date: Tuesday, February 25, 1752

"The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, March 20, 1753

"[I]t is to be regretted, therefore, that he did not exercise his mind less, and his body more: since by this means, it is highly probable, that though he would not then have astonished with the blaze of a comet, he would yet have shone with the permanent radiance of a fixed star."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, October 2, 1753

"Every other passion is alike simple and limited, if it be considered only with regard to the breast which it inhabits; the anatomy of the mind, as that of the body, must perpetually exhibit the same appearances; and though by the continued industry of successive inquirers, new movements will be ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1754

"[I]f Knowledge had broke in upon [Adam] too fast, it would have overwhelm'd, and depress'd him; so that, as in the Case of some intolerable Load laid upon the Body, his Mind must have sunk under the Weight of it"

— Holloway, Benjamin (1690/1-1759)

Date: 1754

"I may with the same Naïvité remove the Veil from my mental as well as personal Imperfections; and expose them naked to the World."

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

Date: 1754

"'Orandum est', let us pray, says Juvenal, 'ut sit mens sana in corpore sano', for a sound Mind in a healthy Body; and every deformed Person should add this Petition, 'ut sit mens recta in corpore curvo', for an upright Mind in a crooked one."

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

Date: 1759

"But why are Originals so few? not because the Writer's harvest is over, the great Reapers of Antiquity having left nothing to be gleaned after them; nor because the human mind's teeming time is past, or because it is incapable of putting forth unprecedented births."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1759

"The minds of the Schoolmen were almost as much cloistered as their bodies; they had but little learning, and few books."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1759

"But as good books are the medicine of the mind, if we should dethrone these authors, and consider them, not in their royal, but their medicinal capacity, might it not then be said, that Addison prescribed a wholesome and pleasant regimen, which was universally relished, and did much good; that P...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: September 15, 1759

"The hand has no closer correspondence with the Memory than the eye"

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)