page 5 of 9     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1790

"The worst of these politics of revolution is this; they temper and harden the breast, in order to prepare it for the desperate strokes which are sometimes used in extreme occasions."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

preview | full record

Date: 1790

"But as these occasions may never arrive, the mind receives a gratuitous taint; and the moral sentiments suffer not a little, when no political purpose is served by their depravation."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

preview | full record

Date: 1791

"If you can but kindle in your mind any strong desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some particular excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break away, without any effect upon your conduct, and commonly without any traces left upon the memory."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

preview | full record

Date: 1791

"I exclaimed to her, 'I am now, intellectually, Hermippus redivivus, I am quite restored by him, by transfusion of mind.'"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

preview | full record

Date: 1791

"The feeling of languor, which succeeds the animation of gaiety, is itself a very severe pain; and when the mind is then vacant, a thousand disappointments and vexations rush in and excruciate. Will not many even of my fairest readers allow this to be true?"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

preview | full record

Date: January 19, 1791

"But it is then, and basking in the sunshine of unmerited fortune, that low, sordid, ungenerous, and reptile souls swell with their hoarded poisons; it is then that they display their odious splendour, and shine out in full lustre of their native villainy and baseness."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

preview | full record

Date: January 19, 1791

"His blood they transfuse into their minds and into their manners."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

preview | full record

Date: February 1791

"Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far as a writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind often appears under a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more than he has expressed."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

preview | full record

Date: 1791

"I compared him at this time to a warm West-Indian climate, where you have a bright sun, quick vegetation, luxuriant foliage, luscious fruits; but where the same heat sometimes produces thunder, lightening, and earthquakes in a terrible degree.

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

preview | full record

Date: 1791

"I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be found more bark and steel for the mind, if I may use the expression; more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

preview | full record

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