Date: 1820

"And they [Stewart, Tracy, Cabanis] ask why may not the mode of action called thought, have been given to a material organ of peculiar structure, as that of magnetism is to the needle, or of elasticity to the spring by a particular manipulation of the steel."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1820

"When I meet with a proposition beyond finite comprehension, I abandon it as I do a weight which human strength cannot lift, and I think ignorance, in these cases, is truly the softest pillow on which I can lay my head."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1830

"No idle whims, no vapours fill'd her brain, / But Prudence for her youthful guide she took, / And Goodness, which no earthly vice could stain, / Dwelt in her mind; she was ne proud I ween or vain."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1831

"By the mind we understand that within us which feels and thinks, the seat of sensation and reason"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"We spurn at the bounds of time and space; nor would the thought be less futile that imagines to imprison the mind within the limits of the body, than the attempt of the booby clown who is said within a thick hedge to have plotted to shut in the flight of an eagle"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"The body is apprehended as no more important and of intimate connection to a man engaged in a train of reflections, than the house or apartment in which he dwells"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"The mind may aptly be described under the denomination of the 'stranger at home.'"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"On set occasions and at appropriate times we examine our stores, and ascertain the various commodities we have, laid up in our presses and our coffers. Like the governor of a fort in time of peace, which was erected to keep out a foreign assailant, we occasionally visit our armoury, and take acc...

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"In the ruminations of the inner man, and the dissecting our thoughts and desires, we employ our intellectual arithmetic, we add, and subtract, and multiply, and divide, without asking the aid, without adverting to the existence, of our joints and members"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"Hence arises the notion, which has been entertained ever since the birth of reflection and logical discourse in the world, and which in some faint and confused degree exists probably even among savages, that the body is the prison of the mind"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)