Date: 1742

"Socrates, and other ancients, seem to have had particular pleasure in running a parallel between agriculture and the improvement of the mind: But in no respect does the comparison or likeness hold more exactly than in this, that as the ground must be properly prepared for the reception and nouri...

— Turnbull, George (1698-1748)

Date: 1742

"Instruction will be but thrown away, it cannot sink into the mind, or take firm root there, so as to fructify, if the mind be not pure and clean, pliable, or docile and open to truth and knowledge, but will quickly be chocked by the opposite illiberal temperature"

— Turnbull, George (1698-1748)

Date: 1742

"The human mind cannot continue long quite a tabula rasa; some images must of course be gaining upon its affections, and consequently, forming some propensities or habits."

— Turnbull, George (1698-1748)

Date: 1742

"The mind naturally continues with the same impetus or force, which it has acquired by its motion; as a vessel, once impelled by the oars, carries on its course for some time, when the original impulse is suspended."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742, 1777

"Away then with all those vain pretences of making ourselves happy within ourselves, of feasting on our own thoughts, of being satisfied with the consciousness of well-doing, and of despising all assistance and all supplies from external objects."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742, 1777

"The heart, mean while, is empty of all enjoyment: And the mind, unsupported by its proper objects, sinks into the deepest sorrow and dejection."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742, 1777

"With what resources is [the mind] endowed to fill so immense a void, and supply the place of all thy bodily senses and faculties?"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742, 1777

"Let me consult my own passions and inclinations. In them must I read the dictates of nature; not in your frivolous discourses."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742, 1777

"Human minds are smaller streams, which, arising at first from the ocean [of Divintity], seek still, amid all wanderings, to return to it, and to lose themselves in that immensity of perfection"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742

"The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)