Date: 1760-7

"To conceive this right,--call for pen and ink--here's paper ready to your hand. --Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1761

"By an idea, then, I mean that image or picture which is formed in the mind, of any thing which we have seen, or even heard talk of; for the mind is so adroit and ready at this kind of painting, that a town, for instance, is no sooner mentioned, but the imagination shapes it into form, and presen...

— Telescope, Tom [pseud.]

Date: 1761

"No, thou art all that's elegant and fair, / And perfect upon earth; and Caius happy / Beyond whatever gratitude express'd, / Or fancy drew, when glowing raptures catch / The poet's breast, and set the soul on fire."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1761

"I admire and revere the purity of your sentiments, the innocence of your life; I trace out in my mind the method of your daily conduct, by comparing it with what I formerly well knew in happier days, and under more endearing circumstances."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)

Date: w. 1762-3, published 1950

"He considered the mind of man like a room, which is either made agreeable or the reverse by the pictures with which it is adorned."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1762

"But as resentment when so outrageous is contrary to conscience, the mind, to justify its passion as well as to gratify it, is disposed to paint these relations in the blackest colours; and it actually comes to be convinced, that they ought to be punished for their own demerits."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"My imagination painted her in all the bloom of youth and beauty. I fancied her attended by the loves and graces, and I set out with the most pleasing expectations of seeing the conquest I had made."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1762

"[M]ake this dear-bought soul of mine / A monument of grace Divine"

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1763-4

A sudden slumber gently seal'd my eyes, / And wrapt my wearied limbs in soft repose; / Excursive Fancy wing'd her agile flight / Thro' the aerial mansions of the world; / Instant appear'd, portray'd upon my mind, / The fair Urania, clad in candid robe; / And bright around

— Mr. P--y (fl. 1763)

Date: 1765

"If all [the mind] had was the mere capacity to receive those items of knowledge--a passive power to do so, as indeterminate as the power of wax to receive shapes or of a blank page to receive words--it would not be the source of necessary truths"

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)