Date: 1785

"To entertain a visionary notion that one sees a distant or future event, may be called superstition; but the correspondence of the fact or event with such an impression on the fancy, though certainly very wonderful, if proved, has no more connection with superstition, than magnetism or electrici...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"The mind of man can bear a certain pressure; but there is a point when it can bear no more."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"I answered I would not; and he applauded my setting such a value on an accession of new images in my mind."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"To apply his great mind to minute particulars, is wrong: it is like taking an immense balance, such as is kept on quays for weighing cargoes of ships, to weigh a guinea. I knew I had neat little scales, which would do better; and that his attention to every thing which falls in his way, and his ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: w. October 27, 1777, printed 1788

"In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: April 5, 1781, 1788

"Cultivated ground has few weeds; a mind occupied by lawful business, has little room for useless regret."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: February 3, 1788

"The spirit of the Gospel 'proclaims liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound:' but these men rivet the chains of slavery; 'the iron enters into the Negro's soul,' while while his mind is left in all the darkness of ignorance, without one ray of those comforts ...

— Agutter, William (1758-835)

Date: 1791

"The dissipation of thought, of which you complain, is nothing more than the vacillation of a mind suspended between different motives, and changing its direction as any motive gains or loses strength."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"If you can but kindle in your mind any strong desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some particular excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break away, without any effect upon your conduct, and commonly without any traces left upon the memory."

— 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."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)