Date: w. 1782-3, 1801
All the mind, "in all her faculties refined," may taste "happiness complete"
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: April, 1783
"If impressions are made upon some substance in the mind, may not forgetfulness of them be only that the perceptive faculty of the soul is turned to other objects, while these still remain ready to be perceived whenever the 'mind's eye,' glances upon them?"
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: April, 1783
"An Hypochondriack is subject to forgetfulness, which may be owing to another cause; that there is a darkness in his mind, or that its perceptive eye is injured and weak at times."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: April, 1783
"Has he been at work all night without being conscious of it. Have other spirits been making impressions on his sensorium. Are there faculties in the mind quite separate one from another, which, like the eyes of Argus, may some of them be awake while others are asleep, and is the great faculty of...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1783
In reverie "we are conscious of something like mental relaxation; while one idea brings in another, which gives way to a third, and that in its turn is succeeded by others; the mind seeming all along to be passive, and to exert as little authority over its thoughts, as the eye does over the perso...
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1783
"Superstition is one of the worst diseases of the soul."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1783
"That 'quickness in turning,' which the poet justly imagines to be essential to fine eyes, betokens in the mind a capacity of passing readily from one thought to another; an agreeable talent, when accompanied with good sense; and just the reverse of sullenness, inattention, and stupidity"
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1783
"The fruits of Sobriety are health, gladness, governable passions, clear discernment, rectitude of opinion, the esteem of others, and long life; which, with an approving conscience, are the greatest blessings here below, and, in all common cases, an effectual security against a diseased imaginati...
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1783
"The human brain is a bodily substance; and sensible and permanent impressions made upon it must so far resemble those made on sand by the foot, or on wax by the seal, as to have certain shape, length, breadth, and deepness"
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1783
"What toil and perseverance, in cultivating the bodily powers, must it require, to qualify the tumbler for those feats of activity, with which he astonishes mankind! [... ]Were we to take equal pains in the improvement of our intellectual and moral nature, which are surely not less susceptible of...
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)