page 1 of 1     per page:
sorted by:

Date: December 10, 1788; 1789

"Sometimes indeed it happens, that he may be able to mark the time, when from the sight of a picture, a passage in an author, or a hint in conversation, he has received, as it were, some new and guiding light, something like inspiration, by which his mind has been expanded, and is morally sure th...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

preview | full record

Date: 1789

"In no state of society can a practice, involving in it circumstances of such atrocious and enormous guilt, be considered as defensible by any person whose understanding is not darkened by the turpitude of his heart; in whom not only the feelings of the moral sense are extinguished, but, in this ...

— Belsham, William (1752-1827)

preview | full record

Date: 1792

"This has sometimes an astonishing effect on the mind; giving the imagination an opening into all those glowing ideas, which inspired the artist; and which the imagination only can translate."

— Gilpin, William (1724-1804)

preview | full record

Date: 1793

In a just society "understanding would convert into a real power, no longer an ignis fatuus, shining and expiring by turns, and leading us into sloughs of sophistry, false science and specious mistake"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

preview | full record

Date: 1793

"Mind will frequently burst forth, but its appearance will be like the corruscations of the meteor, not like the mild illumination of the sun"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

preview | full record

Date: 1793

"Their result will be thick darkness of the mind, timidity, servility, hypocrisy."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

preview | full record

Date: 1793

"It is curious to observe the first dawn of genius breaking on the mind. Sometimes a man of genius, in his first effusions, is so far from revealing his future powers, that, on the contrary, no reasonable hope can be formed of his success."

— Disraeli, Isaac (1766-1848)

preview | full record

Date: 1794

"It [Christianity] has put the whole orbit of reason into shade."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

preview | full record

Date: 1794

"Reason is God's candle in man. But, as a candle must first be lighted, ere it will enlighten; so reason must be illuminated by divine grace, ere it can savingly discern spiritual things."

— Toplady, Augustus (1740-1771)

preview | full record

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"But this obscurity sometimes proceeds from a mixture of light and darkness in the author's mind; from a partial ray which strikes upon an angle, instead of spreading itself over the surface of an object."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

preview | full record

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