Date: May 10, 1704

"Whether Things that have Place in the Imagination, may not as properly be said to exist, as those that are seated in the Memory: which may be justly held in the affirmative, and very much to the advantage fo the former, since it is acknowledged to be the Womb of Things, and the other allowed to ...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"And indeed it seems not unreasonable that books, the children of the brain, should have the honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants of quality."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Nor is mankind so much to blame in his choice thus determining him, if we consider that the debate merely lies between things past and things conceived, and so the question is only this: whether things that have place in the imagination may not as properly be said to exist as those that are seat...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Besides, the eyes of the understanding see best when those of the senses are out of the way, and therefore blind men are observed to tread their steps with much more caution, and conduct, and judgment than those who rely with too much confidence upon the virtue of the visual nerve, which every l...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"To this end I have some time since, with a world of pains and art, dissected the carcass of human nature, and read many useful lectures upon the several parts, both containing and contained, till at last it smelt so strong I could preserve it no longer."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1759

"To the mind, as to the eye, it is difficult to compare with exactness objects vast in their extent, and various in their parts."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach increasing in magnitude."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1766

"Physicians tell us of a disorder in which the whole body is so exquisitely sensible, that the slightest touch gives pain: what some have thus suffered in their persons, this gentleman felt in his mind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1766

"Every tender epithet bestowed on her sister brought a pang to her heart and a tear to her eye; and as one vice, tho' cured, ever plants others where it has been, so her former guilt, tho' driven out by repentance, left jealousy and envy behind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)