page 6 of 10     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1841

"What do we know of the unquiet pillow, / By the worn cheek and tearful eyelid prest, / When thoughts chase thoughts, like the tumultuous billow, / Whose very light and foam reveal unrest?"

— Landon, Laetitia Elizabeth [L.E.L.] (1802-1838)

preview | full record

Date: 1841

"As certain liquors, confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions, will ferment, and fret, and chafe in their imprisonment, so the spiritual essence or soul of Mr. Tappertit would sometimes fume within that precious cask, his body, until, with great foam and froth and splutter, it would forc...

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

preview | full record

Date: 1845

"They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish."

— Douglass, Frederick (1818-1895)

preview | full record

Date: 1847

"I've dreamed in my life dreams that have staid with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind."

— Brontë, Emily (1818-1848)

preview | full record

Date: March 13, 1847

"On this account we compare the heart with the sea, because the purity of the sea lies in its constancy of depth and transparency. No storm may perturb it; no sudden gust of wind may stir its surface, no drowsy fog may sprawl out over it; no doubtful movement may stir within it; no swift-moving c...

— Kierkegaard, Søren (1813-1855)

preview | full record

Date: March 13, 1847

"As the sea, when it lies clam and deeply transparent, yearns for heaven, so may the pure heart, when it is calm and deeply transparent, yearn for God. As the sea is made pure by yearning for heaven alone; so may the heart become pure by yearning only for the Good. As the sea mirrors the elevatio...

— Kierkegaard, Søren (1813-1855)

preview | full record

Date: 1848

Charitable eyes may thaw a heart

— Keats, John (1795-1821) [in collab. with Brown]

preview | full record

Date: 1848

A sword's point may be dipped in "the gloomy current of a traitor's heart"

— Keats, John (1795-1821)

preview | full record

Date: 1850

"This faculty [Imagination/Reason] hath been the feeding source / Of our long labour: we have traced the stream / From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard /Its natal murmur; followed it to light / And open day"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

preview | full record

Date: 1850

"Who that shall point as with a wand and say / 'This portion of the river of my mind / Came from yon fountain?'"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

preview | full record

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