Date: 1752

"Weak, impotent, yet wishing to be free, / You are by much a greater Slave, than me; / A Slave, to ev'ry Gust that shakes your Mind, / Your Eyes broad open, and your Senses blind."

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [pseud.]

Date: 1752

"Disguis'd in vain, wake from your foolish Dream, / And own yourself the very Slave you seem; / The Slave of Passion; which perverts Truth's Plan, / And sinks the virtuous in the vicious Man."

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [pseud.]

Date: 1752

"Well! does that make you wise, / Or open on your Follies, Reason's Eyes!"

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [pseud.]

Date: 1752

"Caution'd in vain--Oh! ever Passion's Slave! / You tempt your Fate, and the same Dangers brave."

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [pseud.]

Date: 1752

A puppet may be "compell'd by secret Springs" just as an engine "moves with Motions not its own"

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [pseud.]

Date: Saturday, January 25, 1752

"Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas, the discovery of some occult relation between images in appearance remote from each other; an effusion of wit, therefore, presupposes an accumulation of knowledge; a memory stored with notions, which the imagination may cull out to compose ne...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, January 25, 1752

"Whatever may be the native vigour of the mind, she can never form many combinations from few ideas, as many changes cannot be rung upon a few bells."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 25, 1752

"They whose souls are so chained down to coffers and tenements, that they cannot conceive a state in which they shall look upon them with less solicitude, are seldom attentive or flexible to arguments; but the votaries of fame are capable of reflection, and therefore may be called to reconsider t...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 25, 1752

"The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, February 29, 1752

"He retired again to his private chamber, and sought for consolation in his own mind; one thought flowed in upon another; a long succession of images seized his attention; the moments crept imperceptibly away through the gloom of pensiveness, till, having recovered his tranquillity, he lifted his...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)