Date: 1774

"It is justly observed by Quintilian, that every fiction of the human fancy is approved in the moment of its production. The exertion of the mind which is requisite in forming it, is agreeable; and the face of novelty which infant conceptions wear, fails not to recommend them promiscuously, till ...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"While a man is engaged in composition or investigation, he often seems to himself to be fired with his subject, and to teem with ideas; but on revising the work, finds that his judgment is offended, and his time lost. An idea that sparkled in the eye of fancy, is often condemned by judgment as f...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"It is this that puts it in the power of genius to show itself: without this, its finest conceptions would perish, like an infant in the womb; without this, the brightest imagination would be like a vigorous mind confined in a lame or paralytic body."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1777

"I mention not the graces of her form; yet they are such as would attract the admiration of those, by whom the beauties of her mind might not be understood. In one as well as the other, there is a remarkable conjunction of tenderness with dignity; but her beauty is of that sort, on which we cann...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"The consciousness of what I mean by this letter to reveal, hangs like guilt upon my mind; therefore it is that I have so long delayed writing."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"That they are commonly vanquished by an effort to vanquish them; and that the sinking under their pressure, is one of those diseases of the mind, which, like certain diseases of the body, the exercise of its better faculties will very soon remove."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"He felt the assiduity of my friendship, and I saw him grateful for its exertion; yet would the idea of being obliged, often rankle in his mind."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"[H]er spirits droop more than her body; she is thoughtful and melancholy when she thinks she is not observed, and, what pleases me worse, affects to appear otherwise, when she is"

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: April, 1778

"A Hypochondriack Preacher, would, I am sensible, be an anomalous character; for whatever part of his sermon should appear not quite intelligible, or at all unpleasant to his auditors, they might very fairly, though perhaps not very justly impute to the gloomy disease of his mind."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1781

"I have been speaking hitherto of a morning saunter; for in the evening there generally is, on St. Mark's Place, such a mixed multitude of Jews, Turks, and Christians; lawyers, knaves, and pickpockets; mountebanks, old women, and physicians; women of quality with masks; strumpets barefaced; and, ...

— Moore, John (1729-1802)