Date: 1708, 1714
"The Human Mind and Body are both of 'em naturally subject to Commotions: and as there are strange Ferments in the Blood, which in many Bodys occasion an extraordinary discharge; so in Reason too, there are heterogeneous Particles which must be thrown off by Fermentation."
preview | full record— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Date: Saturday, March 29, 1712
"The Sixth Book, like a troubled Ocean, represents Greatness in Confusion; the seventh Affects the Imagination like the Ocean in a Calm, and fills the Mind of the Reader, without producing in it any thing like Tumult or Agitation."
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
Date: 1715
"And as our Words must be the Product of our Judgment, so they must be temperate and decent, mixed with Curtesie and Civility; for he that hath calmed his Passions, hath nothing to betray them to rash and rude Language, which is a Foam cast up only by the Billows of a turbulent Mind, and can neve...
preview | full record— Bulstrode, Richard, Sir (1610-1711)
Date: 1727
"The Soul of the Murther'd Person seeks no Revenge; all that Part is swallowed up in the Wonders of the eternal State, and Vengeance entirely resign'd to him to whom it belongs; but the Soul of the Murtherer is like the Ocean in a Tempest, he is in continual Motion, restless and raging; and the G...
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1737
"You see 'tis with weak heads as with weak stomachs, they immediately throw out what they received last; and what they read floats upon the surface of their mind, like oil upon water, without incorporating."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: January 1739
"The vividness of the first conception diffuses itself along the relations, and is convey'd, as by so many pipes or canals, to every idea that has any communication with the primary one."
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Date: January 1739
"The attention is on the stretch; the posture of the mind is uneasy; and the spirits being diverted from their natural course, are not governed in their movements by the same laws, at least not to the same degree, as when they flow in their usual channel."
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Date: 1774
"Genius implies likewise activity of imagination. Whenever a fine imagination possesses healthful vigour, it will be continually starting hints, and pouring in conceptions upon the mind.
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1783
"Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart."
preview | full record— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)