Date: 1695
"I their rude, inbred Cruelty refin'd, / And stampt my perfect Image on their Mind."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1697
"At such Reflections do's not Nature start, / And try at every Spring to touch your Heart? / Do's not soft Pity's fire begin to burn, / Do not your yearning Bowels in you turn? / In such a case Breasts arm'd with temper'd Steel / And Hearts of Marble, should impression feel."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1708
"So that Spirit which comes by the Command of God, do's at all times act upon all Creatures, in some of which notwithstanding, there appears no Impression of it, but the reason of that is, because of their Incapacity into whom it is infus'd; of which kind are things inanimate which are fitly repr...
preview | full record— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)
Date: Tuesday, August 28, 1750
"Yet it too often happens that sorrow, thus lawfully entering, gains such a firm possession of the mind, that it is not afterwards to be ejected; the mournful ideas, first violently impressed and afterwards willingly received, so much engross the attention, as to predominate in every thought, to ...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Tuesday, April 3, 1750
"He that enlarges his curiosity after the works of nature, demonstrably multiplies the inlets to happiness; and, therefore, the younger part of my readers, to whom I dedicate this vernal speculation, must excuse me for calling upon them, to make use at once of the spring of the year, and the spri...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: September 15, 1759
"Where there is no striking disparity, it is difficult to know of two which remembers most, and still more difficult to discover which read with greater attention, which has renewed the first impression by more frequent repetitions, or by what accidental combination of ideas either mind might hav...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1759
"From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less also to hope, and they lose, without equivalent the joys of early love and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of new impressions, which might wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as ...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: September 1, 1759.
" Ideas are retained by renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away, and which new images are striving to obliterate."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1765
"Reason in the bosom pours, / Its growth improves, its fruit matures, / Each counsel of the human brain / Weighs in his scale, and stamps it vain?"
preview | full record— Merrick, James (1720-1769)
Date: 1792
"They bade retentive memory on their mind / Impress each image, in distinctive lines / That mock'd erasure."
preview | full record— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838)