Date: March 16, 1696/7; 1708

"I fansy I pretty well guess what it is that some Men find mischievous in your 'Essay': 'Tis opening the Eyes of the Ignorant, and rectifying the Methods of Reasoning, which perhaps may undermine some received Errors, and so abridge the Empire of Darkness; wherein, though the Subject wander deplo...

— Molyneux, William (1656-1698)

Date: (March 2, 1692/3); 1708

"I have but one Child in the World, who is now nigh four Years old, and promises well; his Mother left him to me very young, and my Affections (I must confess) are strongly placed on him. It has pleased God, by the liberal Provisions of our Ancestors, to free me from the toiling Cares of providin...

— Molyneux, William (1656-1698)

Date: June 2, 1694; 1708

"He is now five Years old, of a most towardly and promising Disposition bred exactly, as far as his Age permits, to the Rules you prescribe, I mean as to forming his Mind, and mastering his Passions."

— Molyneux, William (1656-1698)

Date: December 20, 1692; 1708

"I'm much concerned to hear you have your Health no better and, on this Occasion, cannot but deplore the great Losses the intellectual World, in all Ages, has suffer'd by, the strongest and soundest Minds possessing the most infirm and sickly Bodies. Certainly there must be some very powerful Cau...

— Molyneux, William (1656-1698)

Date: December 20, 1692; 1708

"As for his General Theory of them, I esteem it, as all others of this kind, a sort of mere waking Dream, that Men are strangely apt to fall into, when they think long of a Subject, beginning quite at the wrong End; for by framing such Conceits in their Fancies, they vainly think to give their Un...

— Molyneux, William (1656-1698)

Date: January 1739

"I know that the fear of the civil magistrate is as strong a restraint as any of iron, and that I am in as perfect safety as if he were chain'd or imprison'd."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"In general we may remark, that the minds of men are mirrors to one another, not only because they reflect each others emotions, but also because those rays of passions, sentiments and opinions may be often reverberated, and may decay away by insensible degrees."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"In that case resemblance converts the idea into an impression, not only by means of the relation, and by transfusing the original vivacity into the related idea; but also by presenting such materials as take fire from the least spark."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"I shall therefore observe, that as the mind is endowed with a power of exciting any idea it pleases; whenever it despatches the spirits into that region of the brain, in which the idea is placed; these spirits always excite the idea, when they run precisely into the proper traces, and rummage th...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"An idea assented to feels different from a fictitious idea, that the fancy alone presents to us: and this different feeling I endeavour to explain by calling it a superior force, or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or steadiness."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)