Date: 1787

Thoughts may run all in one channel

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827

"The cistern contains: the fountain overflows / One thought, fills immensity."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827

"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1792

"As when in ocean sinks the orb of day, / Long on the wave reflected lustres play; / Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned / Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind."

— Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855)

Date: February 1792

"It appears as if the tide of mental faculties flowed as far as it could in certain channels, and then forsook its course, and arose in others. How irrational then is the hereditary system, which establishes channels of power, in company with which wisdom refuses to flow!"

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1793

"The most palpable of all classes of knowledge is that I am, personally considered, but an atom in the ocean of mind."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1794

"As those which contribute to circulate the blood, and to perform the various secretions; as well as the associate tribes and trains of ideas, which contribute to furnish the perpetual streams of our dreaming imaginations."

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1799

"His torments were acute and tedious, but in the midst even of delirium, his heart seemed to overflow with gratitude, and to be actuated by no wish but to alleviate our toil and our danger."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

"My thoughts flowed with tumult and rapidity."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

Thoughts may be superseded by a "tide of new sensations"

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)