Date: 1777
"It is true, the mind, as well as the eye, can take in objects larger than itself; but this is only true of great minds: for a man of low capacity, who considers a consummate genius, resembles one, who seeing a column for the first time, and standing at too great a distance to take in the whole o...
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Date: 1777
"Good sense has not so piercing an eye, but it has as clear a sight: it does not penetrate so deeply, but as far as it does see, it discerns distinctly."
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Date: 1778
"Every seminary of learning may be said to be surrounded with an atmosphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may imbibe somewhat congenial to its own original conceptions."
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: 1779, 1781
"When Horace says of Pindar, that he pours his violence and rapidity of verse, as a river swoln with rain rushes from the mountain; or of himself, that his genius wanders in quest of poetical decorations, as the bee wanders to collect honey; he, in either case, produces a simile; the mind is impr...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1779, 1781
"A memory admitting some things and rejecting others, an intellectual digestion that concocted the pulp of learning, but refused the husks, had the appearance of an instinctive elegance, of a particular provision made by Nature for literary politeness."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1779, 1781
"But the power of Cowley is not so much to move the affections, as to exercise the understanding."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1779, 1781
"The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents itself to the intellectual eye; and if the first appearance offends, a further knowledge is not often sought."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: w. October 27, 1777, printed 1788
"In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1788-89
The soul is "Like a man between sleeping and waking, her visions are turbid and confused, and the phantoms of a material night, continually glide before her drowsy eye."
preview | full record— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)
Date: 1788-89
"But on the latter system [Plato's], the soul is the connecting medium of an intelligible and sensible nature, the bright repository of all middle forms, and the vigilant eye of all cogitative reasons"
preview | full record— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)