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: 1778

"Every seminary of learning may be said to be surrounded with an atmosphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may imbibe somewhat congenial to its own original conceptions."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1778

"An exact imitation, therefore, of those pictures, is likely to fill the student’s mind with false opinions, and to send him back a colourist of his own formation, with ideas equally remote from nature and from art, from the genuine practice of the masters and the real appearances of things."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1778

"Ideas thus fixed by sensible objects, will be certain and definitive; and sinking deep into the mind, will not only be more just, but more lasting than those presented to you by precepts only: which will, always be fleeting, variable, and undetermined."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1778; 1779

"Novelty makes a more forcible impression on the mind, than can be done by representation of what we have often seen before; and contrasts rouse the power of comparison by opposition."

— 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: 1782

All "ideas follow each other in our minds in a regular and uniform succession, not unlike the tickings of a clock; and by that means all objects are presented to our imaginations in the same progressive manner: and if any vary much from that destined pace, by too rapid, or too slow a motion, they...

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)

Date: 1782

"We now perceive every [idea], as it passes, through a small aperture separately, as in the camera obscura, and this we call time; but at the conclusion of this state we may probably exist in a manner quite different; the window may be thrown open, the whole prospect appear at one view, and all t...

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)

Date: 1782

"[A] sultry calm fails not to produce a storm, which dissipates the noxious vapours, and restores a purer air; the fiercest tempest, exhausted by its own violence, at length subsides; and an intense sun-shine, whilst it parches up the thirsty earth, exhales clouds, which quickly water it with ref...

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)

Date: December 10, 1782; 1783

"Besides those minute differences in things which are frequently not observed at all, and when they are make little impression, there are in all considerable objects great characteristic distinctions, which press strongly on the senses, and therefore fix the imagination."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)