Date: 1762
"It is accordingly observed by Longinus, in his treatise of the Sublime, that the proper time for metaphor, is when the passions are so swelled as to hurry on like a torrent."
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: 1762
"A tide of connected perceptions, glides gently into the mind, and produceth no perturbation. An object on the other hand breaking in unexpectedly, sounds an alarm, rouses the mind out of its calm state, and directs its whole attention upon the object, which, if agreeable, becomes doubly so."
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: 1762
"The world we inhabit is replete with things not less remarkable for their variety than their number. These, unfolded by the wonderful mechanism of external sense, furnish the mind with many perceptions, which, joined with ideas of memory, of imagination, and of reflection, form a complete train ...
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: 1766
"They suppose the same domineering pride and ingratitude to be the basis of his character; but they are also willing to believe, that his brain has received a sensible shock, and that his judgment, set afloat, is carried to every side, as it is pushed by the current of his humours and of his pass...
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776); with Rousseau, d'Alembert, and Walpole
Date: 1767
His existence is now at last in no danger of comminution, but then his powers are absolutely gone and quite evaporated. In a word, he is as dry and empty as a beer barrel after it has been some time set a-broach to a drunken mob at a general election."
preview | full record— Campbell, Archibald (bap. 1724, d. 1780)
Date: 1767
"Very different ideas however are excited in the minds of some, from those excited in the minds of others, even by the first of these, which may be said to be the original fountain of our knowledge, though the ideas produced by it are conveyed by organs common to human nature; and still more diff...
preview | full record— Duff, William (1732-1815)
Date: 1767
"On the other hand, the too liberal use of IMAGERY even in Poetry (besides that obscurity which it occasions to the ordinary class of Readers, as well as that fatigue which the Imagination experiences from its excessive glare) so disgusts the mind with the perpetual labour of tracing relations an...
preview | full record— Duff, William (1732-1815)
Date: 1767
"Imagination is that faculty whereby the mind not only reflects on its own operations, but which assembles the various ideas conveyed to the understanding by the canal of sensation, and treasured up in the repository of the memory, compounding or disjoining them at pleasure; and which, by its pla...
preview | full record— Duff, William (1732-1815)
Date: 1774
"Genius implies likewise activity of imagination. Whenever a fine imagination possesses healthful vigour, it will be continually starting hints, and pouring in conceptions upon the mind.
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1774
"The largest river takes its rise from some small fountain; issuing from this, it rolls its streams over a long extent of country, and is enlarged during its course by the influx of many rivulets derived from springs no more considerable than its own, till at last it becomes an impassable torrent...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)