Date: 1785
"BOSWELL. 'But, sir,'tis like walking up and down a hill; one man will naturally do the one better than the other. A hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs being short; a dog down.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir; that is from mechanical powers. If you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that ma...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1785
"Besides, so great a mind as his cannot be moved by inferior objects: an elephant does not run and skip like lesser animals."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1789
"I found him a present help in the time of need, and the captain's fury began to subside as the night approached: but I found, 'That he who cannot stem his anger's tide / Doth a wild horse without a bridle ride.'"
preview | full record— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)
Date: 1790
"The man of parts may be admired for his quickness, as the racer is, who flies before the wind; but it is the draft or road-horse of steadier pace that (like good sense) is useful to mankind."
preview | full record— Moore, Charles (fl. 1785-90)
Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827
"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind."
preview | full record— Blake, William (1757-1827)
Date: 1790
"This can only be done by a power out of themselves; and not, in the exercise of its function, subject to that will and to those passions which it is its office to bridle and subdue."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1791
"Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who, while he was chill, was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1791
"If his imagination be not sickly and feeble, it 'wings its distant way' far beyond himself, and views the world in unceasing activity of every sort."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: January 19, 1791
"But it is then, and basking in the sunshine of unmerited fortune, that low, sordid, ungenerous, and reptile souls swell with their hoarded poisons; it is then that they display their odious splendour, and shine out in full lustre of their native villainy and baseness."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1791
"I suppose, Sir, he has thought superficially, and seized the first notions which occurred to his mind. … Why then, Sir, still he is like a dog"
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)