Date: 1762
"Reflecting upon things passing in his own mind, he will find, that a brisk circulation of thought constantly prompts him to action; and that he is averse to action when his perceptions languish in their course."
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: 1762
"The like false reckoning of time may proceed from an opposite state of mind. In a reverie, where ideas float at random without making any impression, time goes on unheeded and the reckoning is lost."
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: December 10, 1776; 1777
"The general objection which is made to philosophy's introduction into the regions of taste, is, that it checks and restrains the flights of the imagination, and gives that timidity which an over carefulness not to err or act contrary to reason is likely to produce."
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: December 10, 1776; 1777
"In the midst of the highest flights of fancy or imagination, reason ought to preside from first to last, though I admit her more powerful operation is upon reflexion."
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: December 10, 1778; 1779
"Where all is novelty, the attention, the exercise of the mind is too violent."
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: 1783
"The reason seems to be, that, in the former case, the mind is supposed to be hurried so fast through a quick succession of objects, that it has not leisure to point out their connexion; it drops the Copulatives in its hurry; and crowds the whole series together, as if it were but one object."
preview | full record— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)
Date: 1783
"It changes the key in a moment; relaxes and brings down the mind; and shews us a writer perfectly at his ease, while he is personating some other, who is supposed to be under the torment of agitation."
preview | full record— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)
Date: 1783
"Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart."
preview | full record— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)
Date: 1790
"Their view calls off his attention from his own view; and his breast is, in some measure, becalmed the moment they come into his presence. This effect is produced instantaneously and, as it were, mechanically; but, with a weak man, it is not of long continuance."
preview | full record— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)
Date: 1790
"Without the restraint which this principle imposes, every passion would, upon most occasions, rush headlong, if I may say so, to its own gratification."
preview | full record— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)