Date: May 10, 1704
"Whether Things that have Place in the Imagination, may not as properly be said to exist, as those that are seated in the Memory: which may be justly held in the affirmative, and very much to the advantage fo the former, since it is acknowledged to be the Womb of Things, and the other allowed to ...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: May 10, 1704
"And indeed it seems not unreasonable that books, the children of the brain, should have the honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants of quality."
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: May 10, 1704
"Nor is mankind so much to blame in his choice thus determining him, if we consider that the debate merely lies between things past and things conceived, and so the question is only this: whether things that have place in the imagination may not as properly be said to exist as those that are seat...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: May 10, 1704
"Besides, the eyes of the understanding see best when those of the senses are out of the way, and therefore blind men are observed to tread their steps with much more caution, and conduct, and judgment than those who rely with too much confidence upon the virtue of the visual nerve, which every l...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: May 10, 1704
"To this end I have some time since, with a world of pains and art, dissected the carcass of human nature, and read many useful lectures upon the several parts, both containing and contained, till at last it smelt so strong I could preserve it no longer."
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1704
"Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their be...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1719
"I expected every Wave would have swallowed us up, and that every time the Ship fell down, as I thought, in the Trough or Hollow of the Sea, we should never rise more; and in this Agony of Mind, I made many Vows and Resolutions, that if it would please God here to spare my Life this one Voyage, i...
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1719
"In a Word, I had nothing about me but a Knife, a Tobacco-pipe, and a little Tobacco in a Box; this was all my Provision, and this threw me into terrible Agonies of Mind, that for a while I run about like a Mad-man."
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1719
"I threw down the Book, and with my Heart as well as my Hands lifted up to Heaven, in a Kind of Extasy of Joy, I cry'd out aloud, Jesus, thou Son of David, Jesus, thou exalted Prince and Saviour, give me Repentance!
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1719
"I found indeed some Intervals of Reflection, and the serious Thoughts did, as it were, endeavour to return again sometimes, but I shook them off, and rouz'd my self from them as it were from a Distemper, and applying my self to Drinking and Company, soon master'd the Return of those Fits, for so...
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)