Date: 1774
"This weakness did not proceed from a bad heart, but was merely the effect of vanity, or an unbridled imagination."
preview | full record— Gregory, John (1724-1773)
Date: March, 1778
"An antient philosopher indeed, full of real or pretended honesty, declared it to be his wish that there were a window in his breast that every body might see the integrity and purity of his thoughts. It would be truly be very pretty and amusing if our bodies were transparent, so that we could se...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1783
"But as his imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct, he sometimes gives it too loose reins."
preview | full record— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)
Date: April, 1783
"Or it may be thus: his ideas hide themselves like birds in gloomy weather; but in warm sunshine they spring forth gay and airy."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: April, 1783
"Let an Hypochondriack then have his park well stocked. Let him get as many agreeable ideas into his mind as he can; and though there may in wintery days seem: a total vacancy, yet when summer glows benignant, and the time of singing of birds is come, he will be delighted with gay colours and enc...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1783
"Besides, when the senses have nothing to employ them, the mind is left (if I may so speak) a prey to its own thoughts; the Imagination becomes unmanageable; the nerves lose their wonted vigour"
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1783
"I shall only remark, that too much study will in time shatter the strongest nerves, and make the soul a prey to melancholy. "
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1785
"BOSWELL. 'But, sir,'tis like walking up and down a hill; one man will naturally do the one better than the other. A hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs being short; a dog down.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir; that is from mechanical powers. If you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that ma...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1785
"Besides, so great a mind as his cannot be moved by inferior objects: an elephant does not run and skip like lesser animals."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1791
"Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who, while he was chill, was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)