Date: 1785

"To this it is owing, that, in ancient languages, the word which denotes the soul, is that which properly signifies breath or air."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that sh...

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"Because bodies are affected only by contact and pressure, we are apt to conceive, that what is an immediate object of thought, and affects the mind, must be in contact with it, and make some impression upon it."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"When we imagine any thing, the very word leads us to think that these must be some image in the mind of the thing conceived."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"The contrary motives are here compared to the weights in the opposite scales of a balance; and there is not perhaps any instance that can be named of a more striking analogy between body and mind."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"I say, when we consider such extravagancies of many of the most acute writers on this subject, we may be apt to think the whole to be only a dream of fanciful men, who have entangled themselves in cobwebs spun out of their own brain."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: December 10, 1784; 1785

"I would rather wish a Student, as soon as he goes abroad, to employ himself upon whatever he has been incited to, by any immediate impulse, than to go sluggishly about a prescribed task; whatever he does in such a state of mind little advantage accrues from it, as nothing sinks deep enough to le...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1784; 1785

"The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an Artist is found in the great works of his predecessors."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 11, 1786; 1787

"A man endowed with this faculty, feels and acknowledges the truth, though it is not always in his power, perhaps, to give a reason for it; because he cannot recollect and bring present before him all the materials that gave birth to his opinion; for very many and very intricate considerations, m...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 11, 1786; 1787

"If this be not done, the Artist may happen to impose on himself by partial reasoning, by a cold consideration of those animated first thoughts which proceeded, not perhaps from caprice or rashness (as he may afterwards conceit) but from the fullness of his mind, enriched with all the copious sto...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)