Date: Tuesday, January 22, 1751

"But this invisible riot of the mind, this secret prodigality of being, is secure from detection, and fearless of reproach."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, January 22, 1751

"The infatuation strengthens by degrees, and like the poison of opiates, weakens his powers, without any external symptoms of malignity."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, January 22, 1751

"It is, perhaps, not impossible to promote the cure of this mental malady, by close application to some new study, which may pour in fresh ideas, and keep curiosity in perpetual motion."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1755

"Those who have much leisure to think, will always be enlarging the stock of ideas, and every increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will produce new words, or combinations of words."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1758, 1781

"This Truth once stated, and the Soul, 'tis plain, Much on the filmy Texture of the Brain, / Much on Formations that escape our Eyes, / On nice Connections, and Coherencies, / And on corporeal Organs must depend, / For her own Function's Exercise, and End"

— Hawkins, William (1721-1801)

Date: 1758, 1781

"Alas! All Souls are subject to like Fate, / All sympathizing with the Body's State; / Let the fierce Fever burn thro' ev'ry Vein, / And drive the madding Fury to the Brain, / Nought can the Fervour of his Frenzy cool, / But Aristotle's self's a Parish Fool!"

— Hawkins, William (1721-1801)

Date: October 21, 1758.

"This counsel has been often given with serious dignity, and often received with appearance of conviction; but, as very few can search deep into their own minds without meeting what they wish to hide from themselves, scarce any man persists in cultivating such disagreeable acquaintance, but draws...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: September 15, 1759

"In the mythological pedigree of Learning, Memory is made the mother of the Muses by which the masters of ancient Wisdom, perhaps, meant to shew the necessity of storing the mind copiously with true notions, before the imagination should be suffered to form fictions or collect embellishments; for...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: September 15, 1759

"Where there is no striking disparity, it is difficult to know of two which remembers most, and still more difficult to discover which read with greater attention, which has renewed the first impression by more frequent repetitions, or by what accidental combination of ideas either mind might hav...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: September 15, 1759

"Thus they load their minds with superfluous attention, repress the vehemence of curiosity by useless deliberation, and by frequent interruption break the current of narration or the chain of reason, and at last close the volume, and forget the passages and the marks together."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)