Date: w. 1764, 1953

"My mind is like an air-pump which receives and ejects ideas with wonderful facility."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1765

"You saw what heart-religion meant [...] true religion is not a negative or an external thing; but the life of God in the soul of man; the image of God stamped upon the heart."

— Wesley, John (1703-1791)

Date: 1765

"And in this I am warranted by the example of ancient Rome; where, as Cicero informs us, the very boys were obliged to learn the twelve tables by heart, as a carmen necessarium or indispensable lesson, to imprint on their tender minds an early knowledge of the laws and constitution of their count...

— Blackstone, William (1723-1780)

Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Formerly my mind was quite a lodging-house for all ideas who chose to put up there, so that it was at the mercy of accident, for I had no fixed mind of my own. Now my mind is a house where, though the street rooms and the upper floors are open to strangers, yet there is always a settled family i...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Only this more. The ideas--my lodgers--are of all sorts. Some, gentlemen of the law, who pay me a great deal more than others. Divines of all sorts have been with me, and have ever disturbed me. When I first took up house, Presbyterian ministers used to make me melancholy with dreary tones. Meth...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"This family! this landlord, let me say, or this landlady, as the mind and the soul are both she. I shall confuse myself with metaphor. Let me then have done with it."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: September, 1766

"Deliver me, gracious Lord from the bondage of doubt and from all evil customs, and take not from me thy Holy Spirit, but enable me so to spend my remaining days, that by performing thy will I may promote thy glory, and grant that after the troubles and disappointments of this mortal state I may ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: September, 1770

"The feelings and passions of the character which he represents, must take full possession as it were of the antichamber of his mind, while his own character remains in the innermost recess."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: September, 1770

"But during the time of his pleading, the genuine colour of his mind is laid over with a temporary glaring varnish, which flies off instantaneously when he has finished his harangue."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: September, 1770

"This double feeling is of various kinds and various degrees; some minds receiving a colour from the objects around them, like the effects of the sun beams playing thro' a prism; and others, like the cameleon, having no colours of their own, take just the colours of what chances to be nearest them."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)