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Date: 1742, 1777

"The heart, mean while, is empty of all enjoyment: And the mind, unsupported by its proper objects, sinks into the deepest sorrow and dejection."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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Date: 1743

"This wings its Way to its Almighty Source, / The Witness of its Actions, now its Judge: / That drops into the dark and noisome Grave, / Like a disabled Pitcher of no Use."

— Blair, Robert (1699-1746)

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Date: September 1, 1759.

"If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur, and every recurrence would reinstate them in their former place."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: September 1, 1759.

"The mind cannot retire from its enemy into total vacancy, or turn aside from one object but by passing to another."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: 1780

Reason's subjects work and return home with "treasures fraught" and display before their queen their "shining spoils, which are laid up in "mental stores."

— Steele, Anne (1717-1778)

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Date: 1782

"She determined, as much as was in her power, in quitting her desultory dwellings, to empty her mind of the transactions which had passed in them, and upon entering a house where she was permanently to reside, to make the expulsion of her past sorrows, the basis upon which to establish her future...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

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