page 1 of 2     per page:
sorted by:

Date: Saturday March 24, 1750

"The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

Date: August 27, 1751

"She applies by turns to every object, enjoys it for a short time, and flies with equal ardour to another. She delights to catch up loose and unconnected ideas, but starts away from systems and complications which would obstruct the rapidity of her transitions, and detain her long in the same pur...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

Date: August 27, 1751

"The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

Date: August 27, 1751

"At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new conquests or excursions."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

Date: April 10, 1753

"The same contrariety of impulse may be perhaps discovered in the motions of men: we are formed for society, not for combination; we are equally unqualified to live in a close connection with our fellow beings, and in total separation from them: we are attracted towards each other by general symp...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

Date: January 27, 1759.

"That it is vain to shrink from what cannot be avoided, and to hide that from ourselves which must some time be found, is a truth which we all know, but which all neglect, and perhaps none more than the speculative reasoner, whose thoughts are always from home, whose eye wanders over life, whose ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

Date: September 1, 1759.

"If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur, and every recurrence would reinstate them in their former place."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

Date: September 1, 1759.

"The incursions of troublesome thoughts are often violent and importunate; and it is not easy to a mind accustomed to their inroads to expel them immediately by putting better images into motion; but this enemy of quiet is above all others weakened by every defeat; the reflection which has been o...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

Date: September 1, 1759.

"The mind cannot retire from its enemy into total vacancy, or turn aside from one object but by passing to another."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

Date: 1779-1780, 1781

"He had employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction and subjects of fancy, and by indulging some peculiar habits of thought was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

preview | full record

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