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."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1774
"Thus imagination is no unskilful architect; it collects and chuses the materials; and though they may at first lie in a rude and undigested chaos, it in a great measure, by its own force, by means of its associating power, after repeated attempts and transpositions, designs a regular and well-pr...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
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."
preview | full record— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)
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...
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Date: 1776
"Hence the strange parade he makes with regions, and recesses, hollow caverns, and private seats, wastes, and wildernesses, fruitful and cultivated tracks, words which, though they have a precise meaning as applied to country, have no definite signification as applied to mind."
preview | full record— Campbell, George (1719-1796)
Date: 1777
"Good sense is a judicious mechanic, who can produce beauty and convenience out of suitable means; but Genius (I speak with reverence of the immeasurable distance) bears some remote resemblance to the divine architect, who produced perfection of beauty without any visible materials, 'who spake, a...
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Date: 1779
"Let me exhort ye then to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of repentance: burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts, mount the chimney of hope, take from hence the bar of good resolution, break through the stone wall of despair, and all the strong holds in the dark entry of the v...
preview | full record— Anonymous
Date: [1782]
"I must now further observe to you, that the Brain is also the Seat or Residence of the MIND or SOUL of the Animal.--That it is the Grand Emporium of all Intelligence, and of all Ideas and Species of external Objects presented there by the Nerves."
preview | full record— Martin, Benjamin (bap. 1705, d. 1782)
Date: 1785
"He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that sh...
preview | full record— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)