Date: 1774

"If it were not employed in this, genius must go on like a mere machine, and a person should have no power over it after it were once set in motion."

— 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: 1774

"That turn of imagination which fits a person for productions in the arts, may no doubt be most properly said to soar, to fly, and to have wings. To dig with labour and patience, is a metaphor which may with equal propriety be applied to the investigation of philosophical truth; it is strongly ex...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1775

"In the wildest flights of fancy, it is probable that no single idea occurs to us but such as had a connection with some other impression or idea, previously existing in the mind."

— Priestley, Joseph (1733-1804)

Date: December 10, 1776; 1777

"The general objection which is made to philosophy's introduction into the regions of taste, is, that it checks and restrains the flights of the imagination, and gives that timidity which an over carefulness not to err or act contrary to reason is likely to produce."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1776; 1777

"In the midst of the highest flights of fancy or imagination, reason ought to preside from first to last, though I admit her more powerful operation is upon reflexion."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1778; 1779

"Where all is novelty, the attention, the exercise of the mind is too violent."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

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)

Date: 1779, 1781

"When Horace says of Pindar, that he pours his violence and rapidity of verse, as a river swoln with rain rushes from the mountain; or of himself, that his genius wanders in quest of poetical decorations, as the bee wanders to collect honey; he, in either case, produces a simile; the mind is impr...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1780

"The best way therefore is, whilst the mind of the historian is on horseback, for his style to walk on foot, and take hold of the rein, that it may not be left behind."

— Francklin, Thomas (1721–1784); Lucian (b.c. 125, d. after 180)