Date: 1741

"For one obscure or confused Idea, especially if it be of great Importance in the Question, intermingled with many clear ones, and placed in its Variety of Aspects towards them, will be in Danger of spreading Confusion over the whole Scene of Ideas, and thus may have an unhappy Influence to overw...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Use all Diligence to acquire and treasure up a large Store of Ideas and Notions: Take every Opportunity to add something to your Stock; and by frequent Recollection fix them in your memory: Nothing tends to confirm and enlarge the Memory like a frequent Review of its Possessions."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Then the Brain being well furnished with various Traces, Signatures and Images, will have a rich Treasure always ready to be proposed or offered to the Soul, when it directs its Thoughts towards any particular Subject."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"This will gradually give the Mind a Faculty of surveying many objects at once; as a Room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great Variety of Pictures, strikes the Eye almost at once with all that Variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: This makes it hab...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"This gives Life and Spirit to every thing that is spoken, and has a natural Tendency to make a deeper impression on the Minds of Men."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"An active Fancy readily wanders over a multitude of objects, and is continually entertaining itself with new flying Images; it runs thro' a Number of new Scenes or new Pages with pleasure, but without due Attention, and seldom suffers itself to dwell long enough upon any one of them to make a de...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Where the Memory has been almost constantly employing itself in scraping together new Acquirements, and where there has not been a Judgment sufficient to distinguish what Things were fit to be recommended and treasured up in the Memory, and what things were idle, useless or needless, the Mind ha...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Whatsoever, saith he, old Time with his huge Drag-Net, has convey'd down to us along the Stream of Ages, whether it be Shells or Shell-Fish, Jewels or Pebbles, Sticks or Straws, Sea-Weeds or Mud, these are the Ancients, these are the Fathers. The Case is much the same with the memorial Possessio...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"A few useful Things perhaps, mixed and confounded with many Trifles and all manner of Rubbish fill up their Memories, and compose their intellectual Possessions. 'Tis a great Happiness therefore to distinguish things aright, and to lay up nothing in the Memory but what has some just Value in it,...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Whatsoever Improvements arise to the Mind of Man from the wise Exercise of his own reasoning Powers, these may be called his proper Manufactures; and whatsoever he borrows from Abroad these may be termed his foreign Treasures: both together make a wealthy and happy Mind."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)