Date: 1759

"Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach increasing in magnitude."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"If I am accidentally left alone for a few hours, said he, my inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul, and my thoughts are chained down by some irresistible violence, but they are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation, and instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less also to hope, and they lose, without equivalent the joys of early love and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of new impressions, which might wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time despotick."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"Imlac was delighted to find that the sage's understanding was breaking through its mists, and resolved to detain him from the planets till he should forget his task of ruling them, and reason should recover its original influence."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"Their grief, however, like their joy, was transient; every thing floated in their mind unconnected with the past or future, so that one desire easily gave way to another, as a second stone cast into the water effaces and confounds the circles of the first."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1760

"I was telling you, my dear friend (said she) for so I shall ever call you from this moment, your kindness having compleated the conquest which your beauty had before made of my heart, I was telling you, that I was going to visit a family this morning, where I promised myself the highest joy that...

— Johnstone, Charles (c.1719-c.1800)

Date: 1760

"I found the spirit very busy, though I thought somewhat odly employed: she was running over a number of niches, or impressions, on the fibres of the brain, some of which I observed she renewed with such force, that she almost effaced others, which she passed over untouched, though interspersed a...

— Johnstone, Charles (c.1719-c.1800)

Date: 1760

"Upon this I mounted into the censorium of his brain, to learn from the spirit of consciousness, which you call self, the cause of so uncommon a change, as it is contrary to the fundamental rules of our order, ever to give up an heart of which we once get possession."

— Johnstone, Charles (c.1719-c.1800)

Date: 1760

"(I see you wonder, that I speak of this spirit [personified consciousness], though the self of a man, as if it was a female; but in this there is a mystery; every spirit is of both sexes, but as the female is the worthier with us, we take our denomination from that.)"

— Johnstone, Charles (c.1719-c.1800)