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Date: 1759

"Bring him into society, and he is immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted before. It is placed in the countenance and behaviour of those he lives with, which always mark when they enter into, and when they disapprove of his sentiments; and it is here that he first views the propriet...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

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Date: 1760-7

"That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--tra...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

Wit and judgment "in this world never go together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other as wide as east is from west.--So, says Locke,--so are farting and hickuping, say I."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

"[A]n illustration is no argument,--nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean, to be a syllogism;--but you all, may it please your worships, see the better for it,--so that the main good these things do, is only to clarify the understanding, previous to the application of the argument...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

The "conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the scripture assures it may) insensibly become hard;--and, like some tender parts of his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose, by degrees, that nice sense and perception with which God and nature endow'd it"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

In Catholicism a man's conscience could not possibly continue for long blinded;--"three times in a year, at least, he must go to confession."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

"Will that restore [the conscience] to sight, quoth my uncle Toby?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

"But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you represent him;--if he robs,--if he stabs,--will not conscience, on every such act, receive a wound itself? Aye,--but the man has carried it to confession;--the wound digests there, and will do well enough, and in a short time be quite healed u...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

When told by another "that such a thing goes against his conscience,--always believe he means exactly the same thing, as when he tells you such a thing goes against his stomach;--a present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

"[T]his identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and became curiously painted, all at once, upon the retina of my uncle Toby's fancy"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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