Date: 1741

"But Words and Things which he lately spoke or did, they are immediately forgot, because the Brain is now grown more dry and solid in its Consistence, and receives not much more impression than if you wrote with your Finger on a Floor of Clay, or a plaister'd Wall."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"But in the middle Stage of Life, or it may be from fifteen to fifty Years of Age, the Memory is generally in its happiest State, the Brain easily receives and long retains the Images and Traces which are impress'd upon on it, and the natural Spirits are more active to range these little infinite...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Yet there should be a Caution given in some Cases: the Memory of a Child or any infirm person should not be over-burdened; for a Limb or a Joint may be overstrained by being too much loaded, and its natural Power never be recovered."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"And particularly they should take care that the Memory of the Learner be not too much crouded with a tumultuous Heap or over-bearing Multitude of Documents or Ideas at one Time."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"When the Attention is strongly fixed to any particular Subject, all that is said concerning it makes a deeper impression upon the Mind."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"There are are some Persons who complain they cannot remember divine or human Discourses which they hear, when in Truth their Thoughts are wandering half the Time, or they hear with such coldness and Indifferency and a trifling Temper of Spirit, that it is no wonder the Things which are read or s...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Sloth, Indolence and idleness will no more bless the Mind with intellectual Riches, than it will fill the Hand with Gain, the Field with Corn, or the Purse with Treasure."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"I Might give another plain Simile to confirm the Truth of this [mnemonic method]. What Horse or Carriage can take up and bear away all the various, rude and unweildy Loppings of a branchy Tree at once? But if they are divided yet further so as to be laid close, and bound up in a more uniform Man...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Therefore it is that the Rules of Grammar, and useful Examples of the Variation of Words, and the peculiar Forms of Speech in any Language, are so often appointed by the Master as lessons for the Scholars to be frequently repeated; and they are contracted into Tables for frequent Review, that wh...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Maronides had got the first hundred Lines of Virgil's 'Æneis' printed upon his Memory so perfectly, that he knew not only the Order and Number of every Verse from one to a hundred in Perfection, but the Order and Number of every Word in each Verse also."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)