Date: January 1739

"On the other hand, impressions and passions are susceptible of an entire union, and, like colours, may be blended so perfectly together, that each of them may lose itself, and contribute only to vary that uniform impression which arises from the whole."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1745

"And, in my Opinion, we have as much need of the Hand of Culture to call forth our latent Powers, to direct their Exercise; in fine, to shape and polish us into Men, as the unformed Block has of the Craver or Statuary's Skill, to draw it out of that rude State, into the Form and Proportions of a ...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1777

"It [the imagination] can feign a train of events, with all the appearance of reality, ascribe to them a particular time and place, conceive them as existent, and paint them out to itself with every circumstance, that belongs to any historical fact, which it believes with the greatest certainty."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1777

"This impression of my senses immediately conveys my thought to the person, together with all the surrounding objects. I paint them out to myself as existing at present, with the same qualities and relations, of which I formerly knew them possessed."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1754

"A very slight Inspection into human Nature suggests to us, that no kind of Objects make so powerful an Impression on us as those which are immediately impressed on our Senses, or strongly painted on our Imaginations."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1751

"Tho' an impression is made upon the mind, by means of the image painted upon the retina, whereby the external object is perceived; yet nature has carefully concealed this impression from us, in order to remove all ambiguity, and to give us a distinct feeling of the object itself, and of that only."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1751

"In walking the streets, how many persons of one's acquaintance are every minute presented to the mind, as their pictures are painted on the retina; yet if we be alone, having our thoughts strongly turned upon a particular subject, or else be deeply engaged in conversation with a friend, we are o...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: w. 1762-3, published 1950

"He considered the mind of man like a room, which is either made agreeable or the reverse by the pictures with which it is adorned."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1762

"But as resentment when so outrageous is contrary to conscience, the mind, to justify its passion as well as to gratify it, is disposed to paint these relations in the blackest colours; and it actually comes to be convinced, that they ought to be punished for their own demerits."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Only this more. The ideas--my lodgers--are of all sorts. Some, gentlemen of the law, who pay me a great deal more than others. Divines of all sorts have been with me, and have ever disturbed me. When I first took up house, Presbyterian ministers used to make me melancholy with dreary tones. Meth...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)