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Date: 1751

"A Warfare of this Kind must indeed be a State of complete Misery, when all is Uproar within, and the distracted Heart set at Variance with itself."

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

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Date: Saturday, March 30, 1751

"Few minds will be long confined to severe and laborious meditation; and when a successful attack on knowledge has been made, the student recreates himself with the contemplation of his conquest, and forbears another incursion, till the new-acquired truth has become familiar, and his curiosity ca...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: Tuesday, January 22, 1751

"But they who are convinced of the necessity of breaking from this habitual drowsiness, too often relapse in spite of their resolution; for these ideal seducers are always near, and neither any particularity of time nor place is necessary to their influence; they invade the soul without warning, ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: August 27, 1751

"At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new conquests or excursions."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: 1759

"He then communicated the various precepts given from time to time for the conquest of passion, and displayed the happiness of those who had obtained the important victory, after which man is no longer the slave of fear, nor the fool of hope; is no more emaciated by envy, inflamed by anger, emasc...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: September 1, 1759.

"The incursions of troublesome thoughts are often violent and importunate; and it is not easy to a mind accustomed to their inroads to expel them immediately by putting better images into motion; but this enemy of quiet is above all others weakened by every defeat; the reflection which has been o...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: September 1, 1759.

"The mind cannot retire from its enemy into total vacancy, or turn aside from one object but by passing to another."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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Date: 1760-7

"[T]here is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like--A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

"Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doc...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1760-7

"But the heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain,--the soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deli...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.