page 1 of 1     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1727

"For it's whole Systeme Aims at this, to make the Furniture of every Person's Mind Alike, their Reason and Faculties the same, and which Garniture, after it has made it a Rasa Tabula, must be of it's own Supplying; 'Tis an Empty Room, without any Thing to Set if off or Adorn it, till this Philoso...

— Greene, Robert (c. 1678-1730)

preview | full record

Date: 1727

"We rather take Notice of this here; Because this Philosophy had made the Mind a Rasa Tabula, or a Blank Paper, or an Empty and Void Room without any Furniture, which therefore it was to Supply; And this is done by Storing it with it's Simple Ideas from Sensation and Reflection, and from thence D...

— Greene, Robert (c. 1678-1730)

preview | full record

Date: 1732

"Trace it to the fountain-head, and you shall not find that you had it by any of your senses, the only true means of discovering what is real and substantial in nature: you will find it lying amongst other old lumber in some obscure corner of the imagination, the proper receptacle of visions, fan...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

preview | full record

Date: 1754

"If we consider them like materials, for so they may be considered likewise, employed to raise the fabric of our intellectual system, they will appear like mud, and straw, and lath, materials fit to erect some frail, and homely cottage, but not of substance, nor value sufficient for the construct...

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

preview | full record

Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Only this more. The ideas--my lodgers--are of all sorts. Some, gentlemen of the law, who pay me a great deal more than others. Divines of all sorts have been with me, and have ever disturbed me. When I first took up house, Presbyterian ministers used to make me melancholy with dreary tones. Meth...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

preview | full record

Date: September, 1770

"The feelings and passions of the character which he represents, must take full possession as it were of the antichamber of his mind, while his own character remains in the innermost recess."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

preview | full record

Date: 1774

"While awake, and in health, this busy principle [the imagination] cannot much delude us: it may build castles in the air, and raise a thousand phantoms before us; but we have every one of the senses alive, to bear testimony to its falsehood."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

preview | full record

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