Date: Tuesday, September 11, 1711
"I am unhappily far gone in Building, and am one of that Species of Men who are properly denominated Castle-Builders, who scorn to be beholden to the Earth for a Foundation, or dig in the Bowels of it for Materials; but erect their Structures in the most unstable of Elements, the Air, Fancy alone...
preview | full record— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
Date: Friday, February 15, 1712
"Her Person, as it is thus studiously embellished by Nature, thus adorned with unpremeditated Graces, is a fit Lodging for a Mind so fair and lovely; there dwell rational Piety, modest Hope, and chearful Resignation."
preview | full record— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
Date: Monday, April 28, 1712
"Thus he spends his time as Children do at Puppet-Shows, and with much the same Advantage, in staring and gaping at an amazing Variety of strange things: strange indeed to one who is not prepared to comprehend the Reasons and Meaning of them; whilst he should be laying the solid Foundations of Kn...
preview | full record— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
Date: Monday, April 28, 1712
"But how can any of these Advantages be attained by one who is a mere Stranger to the Customs and Policies of his native Country, and has not yet fixed in his Mind the first Principles of Manners and Behaviour? To endeavour it, is to build a gawdy Structure without any Foundation; or, if I may be...
preview | full record— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
Date: 1713, 1734
"And although it may, perhaps, seem an uneasy reflexion to some, that when they have taken a circuit through so many refined and unvulgar notions, they should at last come to think like other men: yet, methinks, this return to the simple dictates of Nature, after having wandered through the wild ...
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1713
"On the 11th day of October, in the year 1712, having left my body locked up safe in my study, I repaired to the Grecian coffee-house, where, entring into the pineal gland of a certain eminent Free-thinker, I made directly to the highest part of it, which is the seat of the Understanding, expecti...
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1713, 1734
"It is supposed the soul makes her residence in some part of the brain, from which the nerves take their rise, and are thence extended to all parts of the body."
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1713, 1734
"You cannot say objects are in your mind, as books in your study: or that things are imprinted on it, as the figure of a seal upon wax."
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1713
"One while to trace a theorem in mathematicks through a long labyrinth of intricate turns and subtilties of thought; another, to be conscious of the sublime ideas and comprehensive views of a philosopher, without any fatigue or wasting of my own spirits"
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1713
To visit the Imagination one must "descend a story lower," out of the Understanding and "into the Imagination, which [one may find] larger, indeed, but cold and comfortless."
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)