Date: 1774

"The imagination resembles a person attached to home, who cannot without reluctance undertake a long journey, but can with pleasure make short excursions, returning home from each, and thence setting out anew."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"It arises partly, we have seen, from the mind's dividing its attention between several objects all closely and almost equally connected with the passion; partly from the rapidity with which the mind takes in dissimilar views of any one of these objects; and partly from the struggle between objec...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

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

"What fancied zone can circumscribe the Soul, / Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs, / By Reason's light on Resolution's wings, / Spite of her frail / companion, dauntless goes / O'er Libya's deserts and through Zembla's snows? "

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

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: 1776

"Oft let remembrance sooth his mind / With dreams of former days, / When in the lap of Peace reclined / He framed his infant lays; / When Fancy roved at large, nor Care / Nor cold Distrust alarm'd, / Nor Envy with malignant glare / His simple youth had harm'd."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

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)