Date: 1774

"It is only judgment constantly exerting itself along with fancy, and often checking it and examining its ideas, that produces by degrees a habit of correctness in thinking, and enures the mind to move straight forward to the end proposed, without declining into the byepaths which run off on both...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"It is judgment that perceives when imagination deviates from the paths which lead to the end proposed; it is owing to this perception, that imagination is recalled from its wanderings, and made to set out anew in the right road; and it is the frequent exercise of judgment in this employment, tha...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1782

"Were I poetically turned--what a glorious field for fancy flights--such as the blue-eyed Goddess with her flying carr--her doves and sparrows, &c. &c.--Alas! my imagination is as barren as the desert sands of Arabia."

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1783

"Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart."

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

Date: 1793

"Milton had perhaps wandered in the fields of fancy, and consoled his blindness with listening to the voice of his nation, that was to have resounded with his name."

— Disraeli, Isaac (1766-1848)

Date: November 19, 1793

"The mind, freed from her weighty companion, roams at large through the regions of fancy; and at once conceives and invents, beautifies and illustrates, amplifies and adorns."

— Boyd, Hugh (1746-1794)