Date: 1760-7
"However, as he knew not what the true cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent, in the situation he was in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a stoick; which, with the help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly accomplished, had his imagination continued ...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1760-7
"It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:--What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things,--that trifles light as air, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it,--that Euclid's de...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1760-7
"But here, you must distinguish--the thought floated only in Dr. Slop's mind, without sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as your worship knows, are every day swiming quietly in the middle of the thin juice of a man's understanding, without being carried backwards o...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: w. May, 1756; 1761
"For these, if I forget my patron's praise, / While bright ideas dance upon my mind, / Ne'er may these eyes behold auspicious days, / May friends prove faithless, and the Muse unkind."
preview | full record— Fawkes, Francis (1720-1777)
Date: 1763
"A thousand sweet ideas rise in my mind. My heart dances with pleasure."
preview | full record— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)
Date: 1765
"As when the greedy fowler's snare / The birds by providence elude, / Our souls are rescu'd from despair, / And their free flight renew'd."
preview | full record— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Date: 1766
"A 'vision', passes, inwardly, in the mind; and, is supposed to be, only, an action of the imagination. An 'apparition', strikes the senses, outwardly, and, is supposed to be, an object from without."
preview | full record— Trusler, John (1735-1820)
Date: 1768
"Psha! said I with an air of carelessness, three several times--but it would not do: every ungracious syllable I had utter'd, crouded back into my imagination."
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1768
"When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rose-buds of delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthen'd and refresh'd."
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1768
"Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw--and 'tis thou who lifts him up to Heaven--eternal fountain of our feelings!--'tis here I trace thee--and this is thy divinity which stirs within...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)