Date: 1759

"Incumbered with the notions of others, and impoverished by their abundance, he conceives not the least embryo of new thought; opens not the least vista thro' the gloom of ordinary writers, into the bright walks of rare imagination, and singular design."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1759

"To the mind, as to the eye, it is difficult to compare with exactness objects vast in their extent, and various in their parts."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach increasing in magnitude."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"Words are but Pictures, tru or False Designd / To Draw the Lines, and Features of the Minde"

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1759

"Whence Multitudes of reverend Men and Critics / Have got a kind of intellectual Rickets, / And by th'immoderate Excess of Study / Have found the sickly Head t'outgrow the Body.

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1759

"For genius may be compared to the natural strength of the body; learning to the superinduced accoutrements of arms: if the first is equal to the proposed exploit, the latter rather encumbers, than assists; rather retards, than promotes, the victory."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: December 29, 1759

"If the senses were feasted with perpetual pleasure, they would always keep the mind in subjection."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1760

"Oh, Sterne! thou art scabby, and such is the leprosy of thy mind that it is not to be cured like the leprosy of the body, by dipping nine times in the river Jordan."

— Whitefield, George (1714-1770)

Date: 1762-3

"[T]he five senses in alliance [may] / To Reason hurl a proud defiance, / And, though oft conquer'd, yet unbroke, / Endeavour to throw off that yoke / Which they a greater slavery hold / Than Jewish bondage was of old"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)