Date: 1767

"In order therefore to relish and to judge of the production of Genius and to Art, there must be an internal perceptive power, exquisitely sensible to all the impressions which such productions are capable of making on a susceptible mind."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"In this department, reason reassumes the reins, points out and prescribes the flight of fancy, assigns the office, and determines the authority of taste, which, as we have already observed, must here be contented to act a secondary part."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"The period depends sometimes upon a fortunate accident encouraging its exertion, sometimes upon a variety of concurring causes stimulating its ardor, and sometimes upon that natural effervescence of mind (if we may thus express it) by which it bursts forth with irresistible energy, at different ...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Imagination therefore being that faculty which lays the foundation of all our knowledge, by collecting and treasuring up in the repository of the memory those materials on which Judgment is afterwards to work, and being peculiarly adapted to the gay, delightful, vacant season of childhood and yo...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"A Painter therefore of true Genius, having his fancy strongly impressed and wholly occupied by the most lively conceptions of the objects of which he intends to express the resemblance, has immediate recourse to his pencil, and attempts, by the dexterous use of colours, to sketch out those perfe...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"The same creative power, the same extent and force, the same impetuosity, and fire of Imagination, distinguish both almost in an equal degree; with this difference only, that the latter is permitted to range with a LOOSER rein than is indulged to the former, which, though it may dare to emulate ...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"The conversation-wits resemble those persons, whose ideas pass through their minds in too quick succession to be distinct; but who, nevertheless, being endued with a natural volubility of expression, acquit themselves to admiration in company; while one is at a loss to find either sense or gramm...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"This difference must certainly proceed from the transforming power of Imagination, whose rays illuminate the objects we contemplate; and which, without the lustre shed on them by this faculty, would appear unornamented and undistinguished."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Fancy, if not regulated by the dictates of impartial Judgment, is apt to mislead the mind and to throw glaring colours on objects that possess no intrinsic excellence."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"By this means it happens, that though the principles of a just Taste are implanted in the mind of every man of Genius, yet, by a neglect of proper cultivation, or too great an indulgence of the extravagant ramblings of Fancy, those principles are vitiated, and Taste becomes sometimes INCORRECT,...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)