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Date: 1761

"On the contrary, if the man within condemns us, the loudest acclamations of mankind appear but as the noise of ignorance and folly, and whenever we assume the character of this impartial judge, we cannot avoid viewing our actions with his distaste and dissatisfaction."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

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Date: 1761

"Such persons are not accustomed to consult the judge within concerning the opinion which they ought to form of their own conduct."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

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Date: 1761

"This inmate of the breast, this abstract man, the representative of mankind, and substitute of the Deity, whom nature has constituted the supreme judge of all their actions is seldom appealed to by them."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

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Date: 1761

"It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

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Date: 1761

"Even in good men, the judge within is often in danger of being corrupted by the violence and injustice of their selfish passions, and is often induced to make a report very different from what the real circumstances of the case are capable of authorizing."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

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Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Formerly my mind was quite a lodging-house for all ideas who chose to put up there, so that it was at the mercy of accident, for I had no fixed mind of my own. Now my mind is a house where, though the street rooms and the upper floors are open to strangers, yet there is always a settled family i...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Only this more. The ideas--my lodgers--are of all sorts. Some, gentlemen of the law, who pay me a great deal more than others. Divines of all sorts have been with me, and have ever disturbed me. When I first took up house, Presbyterian ministers used to make me melancholy with dreary tones. Meth...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"This family! this landlord, let me say, or this landlady, as the mind and the soul are both she. I shall confuse myself with metaphor. Let me then have done with it."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: 1767

"Thus it appears to be in every respect a proper counterbalance to the RAMBLING and VOLATILE power of IMAGINATION. The one, perpetually attempting to soar, is apt to deviate into the mazes of error; while the other arrests the wanderer in its vagrant course, and compels it to follow the path of n...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

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Date: 1767

"Nature supplies the materials of his compositions; his senses are the under-workmen, while Imagination, like a masterly Architect, superintends and directs the whole. Or, to speak more properly, Imagination both supplies the materials, and executes the work, since it calls into being 'things tha...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

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