Date: 1705

"Nature is a kind of Harmony, which by a strange Collection of Things, makes an Impression on our Senses and our Reason."

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: 1707, 1709

"So fell Great Britains Orpheus in his Rage, / When Furies in his Breast began to howl, / And Cares that wait on Life's uncertain Stage, / Had quite untun'd his Soul."

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1710, 1734

There are ideas in the mind of God, "which are so many marks or notes that direct him how to produce sensations in our minds" just as a musician uses notes to produce a tune.

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1736

"To these he added many other consolatory Expressions; and a handsome Repast being served in, entertain'd her all the time with such Discourses as entirely brought her back to those Principles from which the Delusions of Ochihatou had made her swerve; and, at the same time, establish'd so perfect...

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1741

"Just so, the quality or disposition in a fiddle to play tunes, with the several modifications of this tune-playing quality in playing of preludes, sarabands, jigs and gavottes, are as much real qualities in the instrument as the thought or imagination is in the mind of the person that composes t...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)

Date: Tuesday, November 20, 1750

"Yet, if we consider the conduct of those sententious philosophers, it will often be found, that they repeat these aphorisms, merely because they have somewhere heard them, because they have nothing else to say, or because they think veneration gained by such appearances of wisdom, but that no id...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, January 25, 1752

"Whatever may be the native vigour of the mind, she can never form many combinations from few ideas, as many changes cannot be rung upon a few bells."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"It must, it must surely be, that this jarring discordant life is but the prelude to some future harmony; the soul attuned to virtue here, shall go from hence to fill up the universal choir where Tien presides in person, where there shall be no tyrants to frown, no shackles to bind, nor no whips ...

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: April, 1778

"The sound of the mind we hear; but what it is we cannot tell. The music which it utters, its melody, its harmony, its discord, its variety of notes, have been written by Shakespeare with a wonderful degree of perfection, so as to be themselves to every cultivated reader. We have even gamuts and ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: April, 1783

"What are we doing while we are endeavouring to recollect an idea which we have forgotten? What faculty is then exerted? How is it exerted? Nothing can be more wildly mysterious. A learned and ingenious physician gave me a very pretty similitude as a slight explanation of it. Said he 'You are lik...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)