Date: 1699, 1714

"There is no body who has consider'd ever so little the nature of the sensible part, the Soul or Mind, but knows that in the same manner as without action, motion and employment, the Body languishes and is oppress'd, its Nourishment grows the matter and food of Disease, the Spirits unconsum'd hel...

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: Wednesday, October 31, 1711

"You have, in my Opinion, raised a good presumptive Argument from the increasing Appetite the Mind has to Knowledge, and to the extending its own Faculties, which cannot be accomplished, as the more restrained Perfection of lower Creatures may, in the Limits of a short Life."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: December 14, 1770; 1771

"The mind requires nourishment adapted to its growth; and what may have promoted our earlier efforts, might retard us in our nearer approaches to perfection."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1776; 1777

"The natural appetite or taste of the human mind is for Truth; whether that truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of the several parts of a...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1784; 1785

"The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an Artist is found in the great works of his predecessors."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)