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)

Date: February 4, 1752

"When we are employed in reading a great and good Author, we ought to consider ourselves as searching after Treasures, which, if well and regularly laid up in the Mind, will be of use to us on sundry Occasions in our Lives."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: Saturday, January 25, 1752

"Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas, the discovery of some occult relation between images in appearance remote from each other; an effusion of wit, therefore, presupposes an accumulation of knowledge; a memory stored with notions, which the imagination may cull out to compose ne...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1752

"But for my part, I promise you I like her beyond all other Women; and whilst that is the Case, my Boy, if her Mind was as full of Iniquity as Pandora's Box was of Diseases, I'd hug her close in my Arms, and only take as much Care as possible to keep the Lid down for fear of Mischief."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1752

"'But you understand Human Nature to the Bottom,' answered Amelia;' and your Mind is a Treasury of all ancient and modern Learning.'"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1752

The mind may be emptied

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1752

"O, my dear Amelia, he hath removed the whole Gloom at once, hath driven all Despair out of my Mind, and hath filled it with the most sanguine, and at the same Time, the most reasonable Hopes of making a comfortable Provision for yourself and my dear Children."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1753

"Worthy possess'd my will--my Lord my eye, / Grinly my spleen--my scorn Sir Lubberly. / Chip had my laughter;--every Man his part, / And room for forty more, in woman's heart."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1753

"Over-cramm'd / With self, and surfeiting on brief success, / The narrow-compass'd heart wants room, for taste."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: Tuesday, August 28, 1753

"To understand the works of celebrated authors, to comprehend their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a task more than equal to common intellects; and he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle, who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge, and can detail it occasionally to other...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)