Date: September, 1770
"This double feeling is of various kinds and various degrees; some minds receiving a colour from the objects around them, like the effects of the sun beams playing thro' a prism; and others, like the cameleon, having no colours of their own, take just the colours of what chances to be nearest them."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1771, 1776
"Thus Heaven enlarged his soul in riper years. / For Nature gave him strength, and fire, to soar, / On Fancy's wing, above this vale of tears."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1771, 1776
"Fancy now no more / Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies; / But, fix'd in aim, and conscious of her power, / Sublime from cause to cause exults to rise, / Creation's blended stores arranging as she flies."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1774
"As acuteness of smell carries a dog along the path of the game for which he searches, and secures him against the danger of quitting it, upon another scent: so this happy structure of imagination leads the man of genius into those tracks where the proper ideas lurk, and not only enables him to d...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1774
"As the bee extracts from such flowers as can supply them, the juices which are proper to be converted into honey, without losing its labour in sipping those juices which would be pernicious, or in examining those vegetables which are useless; so true genius discovers at once the ideas which are ...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1774
"As a sprightly courser continually mends his pace, so genius, in proportion as it proceeds in its subject, acquires new force and spirit, which urges it on so vehemently, that it cannot be restrained from prosecuting it."
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1774
"The vigour of imagination carries it forward to invention; but understanding must always conduct it and regulate its motions. A horse of high mettle ranging at liberty, will run with great swiftness and spirit, but in an irregular track and without any fixt direction: a skilful rider makes him m...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1774
"That turn of imagination which fits a person for productions in the arts, may no doubt be most properly said to soar, to fly, and to have wings. To dig with labour and patience, is a metaphor which may with equal propriety be applied to the investigation of philosophical truth; it is strongly ex...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
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: w. 1772, 1776, 1810, 1825
"For, oh! my heart was light as ony bird that flew, / And, wae as a' thing was, it had a kindly hue."
preview | full record— Barnard [née Lindsay], Lady Anne (1750-1825)