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: 1785
"The shifts and turns, / The expedients and inventions multiform / To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms / Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,-- / To arrest the fleeting images that fill / The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast, / And force them sit, till he has pencil'd off / ...
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789
"Like a snow-ball, the mind, fraught with peace in its prime, / Moves swiftly adown the steep shelvings of Time; / Accumulates filth from Society's sons, / And strengthens and hardens its coat as it runs; / Till habit on habit is negligent laid, / And the object appears motley, vile, and ill-made...
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)
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)
Date: December 10, 1790; 1791
"But I am sure that mechanic excellence invigorated and emboldened his mind to carry Painting into the regions of Poetry, and to emulate that Art in its most adventurous flights."
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)