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Date: 1767

"The mines of Fancy not having been opened before his time, are left to be digged by him; and the treasures they contain become his own, by a right derived from the first discovery. The whole system of nature, and the whole region of fiction, yet unexplored by others, is subjected to his survey, ...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

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Date: 1774

"Fancy throws out both the worthless earth and the rich ore; judgment, like a skilful refiner, distinguishes the one from the other, and purifies the gold contained in the latter, from the dross with which it is intermingled."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

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Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"The fire of the artist's own genius operating upon these materials which have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new combinations, perhaps, superior to what had ever before been in the possession of the Art. / / As in the mixture of the variety of metals, which are said to h...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

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Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"He will pick up from dunghills what by a nice chymistry, passing through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold; and, under the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even sublime inventions."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

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Date: w. 1755, 1777

"She [Nature] employs it [spiritual substance] as a kind of paste or clay; modifies it into a variety of forms and existences; dissolves after a time each modification, and from its substance erects a new form."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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Date: w. 1755, 1777

"And does any thing steel the breast of judges and juries against the sentiments of humanity but reflections on necessity and public interest?"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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Date: 1778

"Education, and good company are necesary to polish the mind----but can any education, or any company, convey a fine understanding, where it has not been given by nature?"

— Caulfield (fl. 1778)

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Date: 1779, 1781

"Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have an intrinsick and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual gold which defies destruction: but gold may be so concealed in baser matter that only a chymist can recover it; sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebe...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: 1780

"My Potter stamp on me thy clay, Thy only stamp of love!"

— Wesley, John (1703-1791)

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Date: 1781

"But the difference is much greater between the ideas of sense, the materials upon which the mind first begins its work, and the truths produced by its operations, than between the rough marble, and the statue formed by the skill of PHIDIAS."

— Rotheram, John (1725–1789)

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