Date: April, 1871

"Strong convictions gave him a kind of cramp in the will, and he could not act on them."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Intensity. This is the main cause why the ideas that flash on the minds of seers, as in Scott's description, are believed; they come mostly when the nerves are exhausted by fasting, watching and longing; they have a peculiar brilliancy, and therefore they are believed."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"There are, it is true, some minds which a mathematician might describe as minds of 'contrary flexure,' whose particular bent it is to contradict what those around them say."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"And in violent cases of mania, where the mind is shut up within itself, and cannot, from impotence, perceive what is without, it is as sure of the most chance fancy, as in health it would be of the best proved truths."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"They are all from various causes "adhesive" states--states which it is very difficult to get rid of, and which, in consequence, have retained their power of creating belief in the mind, when other states, which once possessed it too, have quite lost it."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Constantly impressed ideas are brought back by the world around us, and if they are so often, get so tied to our other ideas that we can hardly wrench them away."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Interesting ideas stick in the mind by the associations which give them interest."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"When the inability to prevent the recurrence of the idea is very great, so that the reason is powerless on the mind, the consequent "conviction" is an eager, irritable, and ungovernable passion."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"But when the conviction of any error is a strong passion, it leaves, like all other passions, a permanent mark on the mind."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Dry minds, which give an intellectual 'assent' to conclusions which feel no strong glow of faith in them, often do not know what their opinions are."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)