Date: 1728
"Reflection pours, / Afresh, her Beauties on his busy Thought, / Her first Endearments, twining round the Soul, / With all the Witchcraft of ensnaring Love."
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
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)
Date: 1790
"Their view calls off his attention from his own view; and his breast is, in some measure, becalmed the moment they come into his presence. This effect is produced instantaneously and, as it were, mechanically; but, with a weak man, it is not of long continuance."
preview | full record— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)
Date: 1791
"I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)