Date: 1748, 1754
"Nature has therefore endued us with a MIDDLE FACULTY, wonderfully adapted to our MIXED State, which holds partly of Sense and partly of Reason, being strongly allied to the former, and the common Receptacle in which all the Notices that come from that quarter are treasured up, and yet greatly su...
preview | full record— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)
Date: Tuesday, March 12, 1751
"There is no snare more dangerous to busy and excursive minds, than the cobwebs of petty inquisitiveness, which entangle them in trivial employments and minute studies, and detain them in a middle state, between the tediousness of total inactivity, and the fatigue of laborious efforts, enchant th...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1760-7
"But here, you must distinguish--the thought floated only in Dr. Slop's mind, without sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as your worship knows, are every day swiming quietly in the middle of the thin juice of a man's understanding, without being carried backwards o...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1774
"Here lies honest William, whose heart was a mint, / While the owner ne'er knew half the good that was in't."
preview | full record— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)
Date: 1774
"The pupil of impulse, it [his heart] forced him along, / His conduct still right, with his argument wrong; / Still aiming at honour, yet fearing to roam, / The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home."
preview | full record— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)
Date: 1778
"So steht unser Körper zwischen Seele und der übrigen Welt in der Mitte, Spiegel der Wirkungen von beiden. [Thus our body stands between soul and ambient world, in the middle, mirror of the effect of both.]"
preview | full record— Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph (1742-1799)
Date: 1780
"The mind, in my opinion, of every well-disposed man, is like a soft mark, or butt; many are the archers in this life, with their quivers full of speeches of every kind; but few amongst them aim aright: some stretch the cord too tight, and the arrow, sent forth with more force than is necessary, ...
preview | full record— Francklin, Thomas (1721–1784); Lucian (b.c. 125, d. after 180)
Date: 1787
"The young man comparing the conduct, speeches, and pursuits of his father with those of other men, the one watering the rational part of his soul, and the others the concupiscible and irascible, he delivers up the government within himself to a middle power, that which is irascible and fond of c...
preview | full record— Adams, John (1735-1826)
Date: 1788-89
"But on the latter system [Plato's], the soul is the connecting medium of an intelligible and sensible nature, the bright repository of all middle forms, and the vigilant eye of all cogitative reasons"
preview | full record— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)
Date: 1796
"What an abominable thing is reading? by this means, the mind is put into a hot-house and forced like a pineapple in Europe; and then produces bad fruit."
preview | full record— Anonymous; Kotzebue (1761-1819)