Date: 1791

"If his imagination be not sickly and feeble, it 'wings its distant way' far beyond himself, and views the world in unceasing activity of every sort."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"He [Johnson] entered upon a curious discussion of the difference between intuition and sagacity; one being immediate in its effect, the other requiring a circuitous process; one he observed was the eye of the mind, the other the nose of the mind."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"A young gentleman present took up the argument against him, and maintained that no man ever thinks of the nose of the mind, not adverting that though that figurative sense seems strange to us, as very unusual, it is truly not more forced than Hamlet's 'In my mind's eye, Horatio.'"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"The analogy between body and mind is very general, and the parallel will hold as to their food, as well as any other particular."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"That his own diseased imagination should have so far deceived him, is strange; but it is stranger still that some of his friends should have given credit to his groundless opinion, when they had such undoubted proofs that it was totally fallacious; though it is by no means surprising that those ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the disease; for he grows fat upon it."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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)

Date: 1791

"No, Sir; violent pain of mind, like violent pain of body, must be severely felt."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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)