Date: 1774

"That turn of imagination which fits a person for productions in the arts, may no doubt be most properly said to soar, to fly, and to have wings. To dig with labour and patience, is a metaphor which may with equal propriety be applied to the investigation of philosophical truth; it is strongly ex...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"It is enraptured by every striking form, it fills the soul with high enthusiasm, it sets the fancy on fire, it pushes it forward with impetuosity, renders all its conceptions glowing, and bestows a freedom and becoming negligence on its productions."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"Refinement and elegance of taste has an effect on fancy, in some respects opposite to those of sensibility. Where it prevails, it hinders many forms and appearances striking to others, from yielding it such gratification as may make an impression on the fancy."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"It is this that puts it in the power of genius to show itself: without this, its finest conceptions would perish, like an infant in the womb; without this, the brightest imagination would be like a vigorous mind confined in a lame or paralytic body."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1776

"Oft let remembrance sooth his mind / With dreams of former days, / When in the lap of Peace reclined / He framed his infant lays; / When Fancy roved at large, nor Care / Nor cold Distrust alarm'd, / Nor Envy with malignant glare / His simple youth had harm'd."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1776

"When therefore the orator can obtain no direct aid from the memory of his hearers, which is rarely to be obtained, he must, for the sake of brightening, and strengthening, and, if I may be permitted to use so bold a metaphor, cementing his ideas, bespeak the assistance of experience"

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)

Date: 1776

"Hence the strange parade he makes with regions, and recesses, hollow caverns, and private seats, wastes, and wildernesses, fruitful and cultivated tracks, words which, though they have a precise meaning as applied to country, have no definite signification as applied to mind."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)

Date: 1776

"It is his purpose in this Work, on the one hand, to exhibit, he does not say, a correct map, but a tolerable sketch of the human mind; and aided by the lights which the poet and the orator so amply furnish, to disclose its secret movements, tracing its principal channels of perception and action...

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)

Date: 1776

"Knowledge, the object of the intellect, furnisheth materials for the fancy; the fancy culls, compounds, and, by her mimic art, disposes these materials so as to affect the passions; the passions are the natural spurs to volition or action, and so need only to be right directed."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)

Date: 1776

"But that kind of address of which I am now treating, attains the summit of perfection in the sublime, or those great and noble images, which, when in suitable colouring presented to the mind, do, as it were, distend the imagination with some vast conception, and quite ravish the soul."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)