Date: 1774
"Penetration implies such a force of imagination as leads to the comprehension and explication of a subject: brightness of imagination fits a man for adorning a subject. A penetrating mind emits the rays by which truth is discovered: a bright fancy supplies the colours by which beauty is produced."
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1776
"The lights of the mind are, if I may so express myself, in an opposite situation to the lights of the body."
preview | full record— Campbell, George (1719-1796)
Date: 1776
"By the memory, on the contrary, that great luminary of the mind, things past are exhibited in retrospect; we have no correspondent faculty to irradiate the future: and even in matters which fall not within the reach of our memory, past events are often clearly discoverable by testimony, and by e...
preview | full record— Campbell, George (1719-1796)
Date: April, 1778
"Cicero, upon whose mind the advancing rays of celestial philosophy beamed with a brightness very admirable in a Pagan period of time, before the Sun of Righteousness arose, and shone forth in full splendour upon the world, informs us, in his Tusculan Questions, of a very remarkable interview bet...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: April, 1783
"An Hypochondriack is subject to forgetfulness, which may be owing to another cause; that there is a darkness in his mind, or that its perceptive eye is injured and weak at times."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: April, 1783
"Or it may be thus: his ideas hide themselves like birds in gloomy weather; but in warm sunshine they spring forth gay and airy."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1783
"Although there may be some few exceptions, yet in general it holds, that when the bent of the mind is wholly directed towards some one object, exclusive, in a manner, of others, there is the fairest prospect of eminence in that, whatever it be. The rays must converge to a point, in order to glow...
preview | full record— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)
Date: 1784
"But when the English, (for though the Portuguese and Spaniards had transported Africans more early to their American settlements; yet Hawkins, an Englishman, is said first to have given occasion for the present inhuman trade) a nation most highly favoured of liberty, is viewed as taking the lead...
preview | full record— Ramsay, James (1733-1789)
Date: 1785
"When we come to be instructed by Philosophers, we must bring the old light of common sense along with us, and by it judge of the new light which the Philosopher communicates to us."
preview | full record— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)
Date: 1785
"I doubted that he would not be willing to come down from his elevated state of philosophical dignity; from a superiority of wisdom among the wise, and of learning among the learned; and from flashing his wit upon minds bright enough to reflect it."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)