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Date: 1754

"The scene of the mind, like a moving picture, must be governed with attention, that it may bring into our view the images we want, and as we want them. Otherwise ideas that are foreign to our actual train of thinking will frequently rush into our thoughts, and become objects of them whether we w...

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

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Date: 1754

"When they have really such ideas in their minds, they must remember too that figures and comparisons are varnish still. It must not be used to alter the intellectual picture, it must only serve to give a greater lustre, and to make it better seen."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

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Date: 1759

"Ye Mothers! train your Daughter's infant Mind; / To practise, when Adult, what's here injoin'd; / With early Care, Seeds of Compliance sow, / As you first shape the Twig, the Tree will grow; / Good Education elevates our Souls, / Corrects the Passions, Appetites controls; / Refines our Nature, a...

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)

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Date: 1760-7

"To conceive this right,--call for pen and ink--here's paper ready to your hand. --Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1761

"By an idea, then, I mean that image or picture which is formed in the mind, of any thing which we have seen, or even heard talk of; for the mind is so adroit and ready at this kind of painting, that a town, for instance, is no sooner mentioned, but the imagination shapes it into form, and presen...

— Telescope, Tom [pseud.]

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Date: 1761

"No, thou art all that's elegant and fair, / And perfect upon earth; and Caius happy / Beyond whatever gratitude express'd, / Or fancy drew, when glowing raptures catch / The poet's breast, and set the soul on fire."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

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Date: 1761

"I admire and revere the purity of your sentiments, the innocence of your life; I trace out in my mind the method of your daily conduct, by comparing it with what I formerly well knew in happier days, and under more endearing circumstances."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)

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Date: w. 1762-3, published 1950

"He considered the mind of man like a room, which is either made agreeable or the reverse by the pictures with which it is adorned."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: 1762

"But as resentment when so outrageous is contrary to conscience, the mind, to justify its passion as well as to gratify it, is disposed to paint these relations in the blackest colours; and it actually comes to be convinced, that they ought to be punished for their own demerits."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

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Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"My imagination painted her in all the bloom of youth and beauty. I fancied her attended by the loves and graces, and I set out with the most pleasing expectations of seeing the conquest I had made."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

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