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Date: 1765

"Modern philosophers give them other fine names and Julius Scaliger, in particular, used to call them "seeds of eternity" and also "zopyra"--meaning living fires or flashes of light hidden inside us but made visible by stimulation of the senses, as sparks can be struck by steel."

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

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Date: 1765, 1770

"Kindling new passions in her Nun's attire, / Till Dod and Dingley are themselves on fire."

— Thompson, Edward (1738-1786)

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Date: 1766

"Faction's torch of sulphurous gleam / Shall fire the heart that feels not Fancy's beam."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

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Date: 1766

"Considering these words, in a religious sense; that of 'fervency', seems to rise upon 'warmth'; 'warmth' implying, a flame of devotion, in opposition to coolness; 'fervency', great heat of mind, as opposed to coldness."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

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Date: 1766

"Fancy leads the fetter'd senses / Captives to her fond controul; / Merit may have rich pretences, / But 'tis Fancy fires the soul."

— Cunningham, John (1729-1773)

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Date: 1768

"In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1768

"The fire caught--and the whole city, like the heart of one man, open'd itself to Love."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: September 30, 1769?

"To nature and the passions dead, / A brothel is his house and bed; / To fan the flame of warm desire, / And after wanton in the fire, / He thinks a labour; and his parts / Were not designed to conquer hearts."

— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)

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Date: 1769

"The first reverend sage who delivered himself on this mysterious subject, having stroked his grey beard, and hemmed thrice with great solemnity, declared that the soul was an animal; a second pronounced it to be the number three, or proportion; a third contended for the number seven, or harmony;...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

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Date: 1770

"The captious turn of an habitual wrangler deadens the understanding, sours the temper, and hardens the heart: by rendering the mind suspicious, and attentive to trifles, it weakens the sagacity of instinct, and extinguishes the fire of imagination; it transforms conversation into, a state of war...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

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