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Date: October 1784

"She grows up, and of course mixes with those who are less interested: strangers will be sincere; she encounters the tongue of the flatterer, he will exaggerate, she finds herself possessed of accomplishments which have been studiously concealed from her, she throws the reins upon the neck of fan...

— Murray, Judith Sargent (1751-1820)

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Date: August 31, 1837

"But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some preestablished harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact observed in insects, who lay up food befor...

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

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Date: 1854

"Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sport; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot one’s self."

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

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Date: 1854

"Patriotism is a maggot in their heads."

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

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Date: 1911

"Sleep scatters you; sensations come storming along into the dreamer's mind, and he is a prey to each in turn."

— Lewis, Edwin Herbert (1866-1938)

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Date: 1914

"I think with all his purity Emerson had within him the turbid stream of passion and desire; for all his hard-cut granite features he knew the instincts of the weakling and the slave; and for all his sweetness, he had the tiger and the jackal in his soul."

— de Cleyre, Voltairine (1866-1912)

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Date: 1918

"Mr. Chesterton's brain swarms with ideas; I see no evidence that it thinks."

— Eliot, T. S. (1888-1965)

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Date: 1989

"When the cat hears the doorbell, this must be something going on, literally, in its head, not just in its furry little mind."

— Nagel, Thomas (b. 1937)

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Date: February 20, 2000

"I sometimes fancy that various archetypal situations circled tirelessly in Hitchcock's mind, like whales in a tank at the zoo."

— Ebert, Roger (1942-2013)

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Date: June 7, 2010

"They have yearnings and fears that reside in an inner beast you could call The Big Shaggy."

— Brooks, David (b. 1961)

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