Date: From Tuesday May 30. to Thursday June 1. 1710
"In a Word, the Beauties and the Charms of Nature and of Art court all my Faculties, refresh the Fibres of the Brain, and smooth every Avenue of Thought. What pleasing Meditations, what agreeable Wanderings of the Mind, and what delicious Slumbers, have I enjoyed here?"
preview | full record— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
Date: 1711
"And reflecting on what is transacted within us, it seems to me a very diverting Scene to think when we strive to recollect something that does not then occur; how nimbly those volatil Messengers of ours will beat through all the Paths, and hunt every Enclosure of the Organ set aside for thinking...
preview | full record— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Date: 1713
"Sometimes, to wander through perfumed groves, or enamelled meadows, in the fancy of a poet."
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: August 27, 1751
"The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1754
"This is the great intellectual province, wherein our minds range with much freedom, and often with exorbitant licence, in the pursuit of real or imaginary science."
preview | full record— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)
Date: 1759
"His mighty mind travelled round the intellectual world; and, with a more than eagle's eye, saw, and has pointed out blank spaces, or dark spots in it, on which the human mind never shone."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: September 1, 1759.
"The incursions of troublesome thoughts are often violent and importunate; and it is not easy to a mind accustomed to their inroads to expel them immediately by putting better images into motion; but this enemy of quiet is above all others weakened by every defeat; the reflection which has been o...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1763 (repr. 1776); 1794 (repr. 1799)
"When the senses are gently and naturally shut up, and the command over the body intermitted, as in sleep, if we think at all we are said to dream; and generally wander through airy tracks of thought, which have no agreement with each other, nor are at all corrected by the judgment."
preview | full record— Doddridge, Philip (1702-1751)
Date: 1767
"Thus it appears to be in every respect a proper counterbalance to the RAMBLING and VOLATILE power of IMAGINATION. The one, perpetually attempting to soar, is apt to deviate into the mazes of error; while the other arrests the wanderer in its vagrant course, and compels it to follow the path of n...
preview | full record— Duff, William (1732-1815)
Date: 1767
"Conscious of its native energy, it delights to expand its faculties by the most vigorous exertion, Ranging through the unbounded regions of nature and of art, it explores unbeaten tracks of thought, catches a glimpse of some objects which lie far beyond the sphere of ordinary observation, and ob...
preview | full record— Duff, William (1732-1815)