page 1 of 4     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1785

"BOSWELL. 'But, sir,'tis like walking up and down a hill; one man will naturally do the one better than the other. A hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs being short; a dog down.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir; that is from mechanical powers. If you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that ma...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

preview | full record

Date: 1785

"Besides, so great a mind as his cannot be moved by inferior objects: an elephant does not run and skip like lesser animals."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

preview | full record

Date: 1789

"I found him a present help in the time of need, and the captain's fury began to subside as the night approached: but I found, 'That he who cannot stem his anger's tide / Doth a wild horse without a bridle ride.'"

— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)

preview | full record

Date: 1790

"The man of parts may be admired for his quickness, as the racer is, who flies before the wind; but it is the draft or road-horse of steadier pace that (like good sense) is useful to mankind."

— Moore, Charles (fl. 1785-90)

preview | full record

Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827

"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

preview | full record

Date: 1790

"This can only be done by a power out of themselves; and not, in the exercise of its function, subject to that will and to those passions which it is its office to bridle and subdue."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

preview | full record

Date: December 1790

"Not having leisure or patience to follow this desultory writer through all the devious tracks in which his fancy has started fresh game, I have confined my strictures, in a great measure, to the grand principles at which he has levelled many ingenious arguments in a very specious garb."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

preview | full record

Date: December 1790

"The man has been changed into an artificial monster by the station in which he was born, and the consequent homage that benumbed his faculties like the torpedo’s touch."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

preview | full record

Date: December 1790

"The passions are necessary auxiliaries of reason: a present impulse pushes us forward, and when we discover that the game did not deserve the chace, we find that we have gone over much ground, and not only gained many new ideas, but a habit of thinking."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

preview | full record

Date: December 1790

"[A]n immoderate desire to please contracts the faculties, and immerges, to borrow the idea of a great philosopher, the soul in matter, till it becomes unable to mount on the wing of contemplation."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

preview | full record

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