Date: 1783

"EVERY object which makes any impression on the human mind, is constantly accompanied with certain circumstances and relations, that strike us at the same time."

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

Date: 1783

"Secondly, The pleasure of Comparison arises from the illustration which the simile employed gives to the principal object; from the clearer view of it which it presents; or the more strong impression of it which it stamps upon the mind: and, thirdly, It arises from the introduction of a new, and...

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

Date: 1783

"A maxim, or moral saying, properly enough receives this form; both because it is supposed to be the fruit of meditation, and because it is designed to be engraven on the memory, which recalls it more easily by the help of such contrasted expressions."

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

Date: 1785

"Aristotle taught, that all the objects of our thought enter at first by the senses; and, since the sense cannot receive external material objects themselves, it receives their species; that is, their images or forms, without the matter; as wax receives the form of the seal without any of the mat...

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"When we speak of making an impression on the mind, the word is carried still farther from its literal meaning; use, however, which is the arbiter of language, authorises this application of it."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"Because bodies are affected only by contact and pressure, we are apt to conceive, that what is an immediate object of thought, and affects the mind, must be in contact with it, and make some impression upon it."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: December 10, 1784; 1785

"I would rather wish a Student, as soon as he goes abroad, to employ himself upon whatever he has been incited to, by any immediate impulse, than to go sluggishly about a prescribed task; whatever he does in such a state of mind little advantage accrues from it, as nothing sinks deep enough to le...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 11, 1786; 1787

"A man endowed with this faculty, feels and acknowledges the truth, though it is not always in his power, perhaps, to give a reason for it; because he cannot recollect and bring present before him all the materials that gave birth to his opinion; for very many and very intricate considerations, m...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 11, 1786; 1787

"A landskip thus conducted, under the influence of a Poetical mind, will have the same superiority over the more ordinary and common views, as Milton's Allegro and Penseroso have over a cold prosaic narration or description; and such a Picture would make a more forcible impression on the mind tha...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1790

"There is no commonly honest man who does not more dread the inward disgrace of such an action, the indelible stain which it would for ever stamp upon his own mind, than the greatest external calamity which, without any fault of his own, could possibly befal him; and who does not inwardly feel th...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)