Date: Wednesday, November 21, 1711

"There is a Creature who has all the Organs of Speech, a tolerable good Capacity for conceiving what is said to it, together with a pretty proper Behaviour in all the Occurrences of common Life; but naturally very vacant of Thought in it self, and therefore forced to apply it self to foreign Assi...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Wednesday, November 21, 1711

"This Curiosity, without Malice or Self-interest, lays up in the Imagination a Magazine of Circumstances which cannot but entertain when they are produced in Conversation."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Saturday, December 1, 1711

"In our present Condition, which is a middle State, our Minds are, as it were, chequered with Truth and Falshood; and as our Faculties are narrow, and our Views imperfect, it is impossible but our Curiosity must meet with many Repulses."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Monday, December 3, 1711

"Among all the Diseases of the Mind, there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the Love of Flattery."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Monday, December 3, 1711

"First we flatter ourselves, and then the Flattery of others is sure of Success. It awakens our Self-Love within, a Party which is ever ready to revolt from our better Judgment, and join the Enemy without."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Monday, December 3, 1711

"A good Name is fitly compared to a precious Ointment, and when we are praised with Skill and Decency, 'tis indeed the most agreeable Perfume, but if too strongly admitted into a Brain of a less vigorous and happy Texture, 'twill, like too strong an Odour, overcome the Senses, and prove perniciou...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Monday, December 3, 1711

"A good Name is fitly compared to a precious Ointment2, and when we are praised with Skill and Decency, 'tis indeed the most agreeable Perfume, but if too strongly admitted into a Brain of a less vigorous and happy Texture, 'twill, like too strong an Odour, overcome the Senses, and prove pernicio...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: December 24, 1711

"Ambition raises a secret Tumult in the Soul, it inflames the Mind, and puts it into a violent Hurry of Thought: It is still reaching after an empty imaginary Good, that has not in it the Power to abate or satisfy it."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: December 24, 1711

"It may indeed fill the Mind for a while with a giddy kind of Pleasure, but it is such a Pleasure as makes a Man restless and uneasy under it; and which does not so much satisfy the present Thirst, as it excites fresh Desires, and sets the Soul on new Enterprises."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: December 24, 1711

"The Desire of it stirs up very uneasy Motions in the Mind, and is rather inflamed than satisfied by the Presence of the Thing desired."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)