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Date: 1708

Now among other things of this kind which he discover'd, it appear'd to him that the Animal Spirit, which is Seal'd in the Heart (as we have mention'd before) must necessarily have some Quality superadded to its Corporeity, which rendred it capable of those wonderful Actions, different Sensations...

— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)

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Date: 1712

"When Objects thro' the Senses Passage gain, / And fill with various Imag'ry the Brain, / Th' Ideas, which the Mind does thence perceive,/ To Think and Know the first Occasion give."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1723

"The Cells, and little Lodgings, Thou canst see / In Mem'ry's Hoards and secret Treasury; / Dost the dark Cave of each Idea spy, / And see'st how rang'd the crouded Lodgers lye; / How some, when beckon'd by the Soul, awake, / While peaceful Rest their uncall'd Neighbours take."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: Tuesday, April 3, 1750

"He must fly from himself, either because he feels a tediousness in life from the equipoise of an empty mind, which, having no tendency to one motion more than another, but as it is impelled by some external power, must always have recourse to foreign objects; or he must be afraid of the intrusio...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: Saturday, December 13, 1750

"The most important events, when they become familiar, are no longer considered with wonder or solicitude, and that which at first filled up our whole attention, and left no place for any other thought, is soon thrust aside into some remote repository of the mind, and lies among other lumber of t...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: Saturday, December 21, 1751

"A careless glance upon a favourite author, or transient survey of the varieties of life, is sufficient to supply the first hint or seminal idea, which, enlarged by the gradual accretion of matter stored in the mind, is by the warmth of fancy easily expanded into flowers, and sometimes ripened in...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: October 21, 1758.

"This counsel has been often given with serious dignity, and often received with appearance of conviction; but, as very few can search deep into their own minds without meeting what they wish to hide from themselves, scarce any man persists in cultivating such disagreeable acquaintance, but draws...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: September 15, 1759

"In the mythological pedigree of Learning, Memory is made the mother of the Muses by which the masters of ancient Wisdom, perhaps, meant to shew the necessity of storing the mind copiously with true notions, before the imagination should be suffered to form fictions or collect embellishments; for...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: 1760-7

"But the heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain,--the soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deli...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1774

"Let me, therfore, most earnestly recommend to you, to hoard up, while you can, a great stock of knowledge; for though, during the dissipation of your youth, you may not have occasion to spend much of it; yet, you may depend upon it, that a time will come, when you will want it to maintain you. P...

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

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