updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2011-05-24 20:50:05 UTC,18473,"The end therefore which at present calls forth our efforts, will be found, when it is once gained, to be only one of the means to some remoter end. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
(p. 9)","","""The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.""",6864,,Searching at UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-24 20:50:05 UTC,"","",""
2014-02-05 22:05:03 UTC,23368,"I. LABOUR by all means to gain an attentive and patient Temper of Mind, a Power of confining and fixing your Thoughts so long on any one appointed Subject, till you have surveyed it on every Side and in every Situation, and run through the several Powers, Parts, Properties, and Relations, Effects and Consequences of it. He whose Thoughts are very fluttering and wandering, and cannot be fixed attentively to a few Ideas successively, will never be able to survey many and various objects distinctly at once, but will certainly be overwhelm'd and confounded with the Multiplicity of them. The Rules for fixing the Attention in the former Chapter are proper to be consulted here.
(p. 238)","","""He whose Thoughts are very fluttering and wandering, and cannot be fixed attentively to a few Ideas successively, will never be able to survey many and various objects distinctly at once, but will certainly be overwhelm'd and confounded with the Multiplicity of them.""",4702,,"Searching and Reading in Google Books
",2014-02-05 22:05:03 UTC,"","",""
2014-02-05 22:13:05 UTC,23374,"'Tis often found that a fine Genius has but a feeble Memory: For where the Genius is bright, and the Imagination vivid, the Power of Memory may be too much neglected and lose its Improvement. An active Fancy readily wanders over a multitude of objects, and is continually entertaining itself with new flying Images; it runs thro' a Number of new Scenes or new Pages with pleasure, but without due Attention, and seldom suffers itself to dwell long enough upon any one of them to make a deep impression thereof upon the Mind, and commit it to lasting Remembrance. This is one plain and obvious Reason why there are some persons of very bright Parts and active Spirits who have but short and narrow Powers of Remembrance; for having Riches of their own they are not sollicitous to borrow.
(pp. 250-1)","","""An active Fancy readily wanders over a multitude of objects, and is continually entertaining itself with new flying Images; it runs thro' a Number of new Scenes or new Pages with pleasure, but without due Attention, and seldom suffers itself to dwell long enough upon any one of them to make a deep impression thereof upon the Mind, and commit it to lasting Remembrance.""",4702,,Searching and Reading in Google Books,2014-02-05 22:13:05 UTC,"","",Impressions
2014-02-05 22:32:25 UTC,23389,"1. DUE Attention and Diligence to learn and know Things which we would commit to our Remembrance is a Rule of great Necessity in this Case. When the Attention is strongly fixed to any particular Subject, all that is said concerning it makes a deeper impression upon the Mind. There are are some Persons who complain they cannot remember divine or human Discourses which they hear, when in Truth their Thoughts are wandering half the Time, or they hear with such coldness and Indifferency and a trifling Temper of Spirit, that it is no wonder the Things which are read or spoken make but a slight Impression on the Brain, and get no firm footing in the Seat of Memory, but soon vanish and are lost.
(pp. 259-60)","","""There are are some Persons who complain they cannot remember divine or human Discourses which they hear, when in Truth their Thoughts are wandering half the Time, or they hear with such coldness and Indifferency and a trifling Temper of Spirit, that it is no wonder the Things which are read or spoken make but a slight Impression on the Brain, and get no firm footing in the Seat of Memory, but soon vanish and are lost.""",4702,,Searching and Reading in Google Books,2014-02-05 22:32:25 UTC,"","",""
2014-03-14 20:14:51 UTC,23715,"But still this faculty is proportioned to our imperfect nature, and therefore weak, slow, and uncertain in its operations. Our simple ideas fade in the mind, or fleet out of it, unless they are frequently renewed: and the most tenacious memory cannot maintain such as are very complex, without the greatest attention, and a constant care, nor always with both. All our ideas in general are recalled slowly by some, and successively by every mind. Themistocles was famous, among other parts wherein he excelled, for his memory, but when he refused the offer Simonides made him, it was, I suppose, because he did not want the poet's skill to improve his memory, and because he knew by experience, that the great defects of this faculty are neither to be cured, nor supplied by art. In what proportion soever it is given, it may be improved to some degree, no doubt, but memory will never present ideas to the human mind, as it does perhaps to superior intelligences, like objects in a mirror, where they may be viewed at every instant, all at once, without effort or toil, in their original freshness, and with their original precision, such as they were when they first came into the mind, or when they were first framed by it. Could memory serve us in this manner, our knowledge would be still very imperfect; but many errors into which we fall, and into which we are seduced, would be avoided, and the endless chicane of learned disputation would be stopped in a great measure. It is for this reason I have said so much of this faculty of the mind, as you will have occasion soon to observe.
(Essay I, §2; vol. iii, pp. 368-9)","","""Our simple ideas fade in the mind, or fleet out of it, unless they are frequently renewed: and the most tenacious memory cannot maintain such as are very complex, without the greatest attention, and a constant care, nor always with both.""",7856,,Reading,2014-03-14 20:14:51 UTC,"","",""
2014-03-14 20:18:44 UTC,23720,"[...] In like manner, an action which we see performed, as in the case of killing mentioned above, gives an idea no doubt; but this idea, in the respect in which it is considered here, is nothing more than a hint to the mind, that passes from a bare perception of the action to contemplate of the circumstances of it, and all the relations both of the action, and of the actors, and so frames by reflection, without the concurrence of sensation, ideas and notions, of another kind, both particular and general. This is the great intellectual province, wherein our minds range with much freedom, and often with exorbitant licence, in the pursuit of real or imaginary science. We add ideas to ideas, and notions to notions of all these; we acquire at length such a multitude as astonishes the mind itself, and is both for number and variety inconceivable.
(Essay I, §4; vol. iii, p. 408)","","""This is the great intellectual province, wherein our minds range with much freedom, and often with exorbitant licence, in the pursuit of real or imaginary science.""",7856,,Reading,2014-03-14 20:18:44 UTC,"","",""
2018-04-17 17:24:55 UTC,25174,"The reigning philosophy informs us, that the vast bodies which constitute the universe, are regulated in their progress through the etherial spaces, by the perpetual agency of contrary forces; by one of which they are restrained from deserting their orbits, and losing themselves in the immensity of heaven; and held off by the other from rushing together, and clustering round their centre with everlasting cohesion.
The same contrariety of impulse may be perhaps discovered in the motions of men: we are formed for society, not for combination; we are equally unqualified to live in a close connection with our fellow beings, and in total separation from them: we are attracted towards each other by general sympathy, but kept back from contact by private interests.
Some philosophers have been foolish enough to imagine, that improvements might be made in the system of the universe, by a different arrangement of the orbs of heaven; and politicians, equally ignorant and equally presumptuous, may easily be led to suppose, that the happiness of our world would be promoted by a different tendency of the human mind. It appears, indeed, to a slight and superficial observer, that many things impracticable in our present state, might be easily effected, if mankind were better disposed to union and co-operation: but a little reflection will discover, that if confederacies were easily formed, they would lose their efficacy, since numbers would be opposed to numbers, and unanimity to unanimity; and instead of the present petty competitions of individuals or single families, multitudes would be supplanting multitudes, and thousands plotting against thousands.","","""The same contrariety of impulse may be perhaps discovered in the motions of men: we are formed for society, not for combination; we are equally unqualified to live in a close connection with our fellow beings, and in total separation from them: we are attracted towards each other by general sympathy, but kept back from contact by private interests.""",8273,,Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson,2018-04-17 17:24:55 UTC,"","",""
2018-04-19 20:17:42 UTC,25182,"If we consider the exercises of the mind, it will be found that in each part of life some particular faculty is more eminently employed. When the treasures of knowledge are first opened before us, while novelty blooms alike on either hand, and every thing equally unknown and unexamined seems of equal value, the power of the soul is principally exerted in a vivacious and desultory curiosity. She applies by turns to every object, enjoys it for a short time, and flies with equal ardour to another. She delights to catch up loose and unconnected ideas, but starts away from systems and complications which would obstruct the rapidity of her transitions, and detain her long in the same pursuit.","","""She applies by turns to every object, enjoys it for a short time, and flies with equal ardour to another. She delights to catch up loose and unconnected ideas, but starts away from systems and complications which would obstruct the rapidity of her transitions, and detain her long in the same pursuit.""",8274,,Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. ,2018-04-19 20:17:42 UTC,"","",""
2018-04-19 20:22:22 UTC,25184,"Now commences the reign of judgment or reason; we begin to find little pleasure, but in comparing arguments, stating propositions, disentangling perplexities, clearing ambiguities, and deducing consequences. The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration. Whatever may lull vigilance, or mislead attention, is contemptuously rejected, and every disguise in which error may be concealed, is carefully observed, till by degrees a certain number of incontestable or unsuspected propositions are established, and at last concatenated into arguments, or compacted into systems.","","""The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration.""",8274,,Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. ,2018-04-19 20:22:22 UTC,"","",""
2018-04-19 20:33:00 UTC,25185,"At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new conquests or excursions. This is the age of recollection and narrative; the opinions are settled, and the avenues of apprehension shut against any new intelligence; the days that are to follow must pass in the inculcation of precepts already collected, and assertion of tenets already received; nothing is henceforward so odious as opposition, so insolent as doubt, or so dangerous as novelty.","","""At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new conquests or excursions.""",8274,,Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. ,2018-04-19 20:33:00 UTC,"","",""