Date: May 10, 1704
"But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others,...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: May 10, 1704
"And whereas the mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, does never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low, of good and evil, his first flight of fancy commonly transports him to ideas of what is most perfect, finished, and exalted, till, having...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: May 10, 1704
"Whether a tincture of malice in our natures makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its reverse, or whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity under shade and darkness, or whe...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: May 10, 1704
"It would be a mighty advantage accruing to the public from this inquiry that all these would very much excel and arrive at great perfection in their several kinds, which I think is manifest from what I have already shown, and shall enforce by this one plain instance, that even I myself, the auth...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1704
"Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their be...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1710
"The Two Principal Qualifications of a Phanatick Preacher are, his Inward Light, and his Head full of Maggots."
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1719
"It would take up a larger Volume than this whole Work is intended to be, to set down all the Contrivances I hatch'd, or rather brooded upon in my Thought."
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1722
"His Words I must confess fir'd my Blood; all my Spirits flew about my Heart, and put me into Disorder enough."
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1724
"Those Reflections began to prey upon my Comforts, and lessen the Sweets of my other Enjoyments: They might be said to have gnaw'd a Hole in my Heart before; but now they made a Hole quite thro' it; now they eat into all my pleasant things; made bitter every Sweet, and mix'd my Sighs with every S...
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1751
"[H]is heart was shod with a metal much harder than iron, which he was afraid nothing but hell-fire would be able to melt."
preview | full record— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)