Date: 1779

"Our affections are indeed the medium through which we may be said to survey ourselves, and every thing else; and whatever be our inward frame, we are apt to perceive a wonderful congeniality in the world without us"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1779

"A man's natural inclination works incessantly upon him ... The force of the greatest gravity, say the philosophers, is infinitely small, in comparison of that of the least impulse: yet it is certain, that the smallest gravity will, in the end, prevail above a great impulse; because no strokes or...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: September, 1781

"To think in this manner is to augment our existence, as instead of reckoning a third of our life mere waste, we habituate ourselves to attend to the result of our hours past in Sleep, and to recover out of the mass of thought produced during that period, very often amusement, and sometimes usefu...

— 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)

Date: 1783

"But as his imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct, he sometimes gives it too loose reins."

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

Date: 1783

Epicurus "fancied, that an infinite multitude of subtle images; some flowing from bodies, some formed in the air of their own accord, and others made up of different things variously combined, are always moving up and down around us: and that these images, being of extreme fineness, penetrate our...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"Aristotle seems to think, that every object of sense makes, upon the human soul, or upon some part of our frame, a certain impression; which remains for some time after the object that made it is gone; and which, being afterwards recognized by the mind in sleep"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

The human body is like a barometer: "If the external air can affect the motions of so heavy a substance as mercury, in the tube of the barometer; we need no wonder, that it should affect those finer fluids, that circulate through the human body."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"But it is urged, that in sleep, the soul is passive, and haunted by visions, which she would gladly get rid of if she could"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: April, 1783

If human souls are of an essence pure, / How fix ideas in them to endure? / And if material, canst not thou, Monro, / The little cells of our ideas show?"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)