Date: 1783

"[W]hat Horace observes of words is equally true of thoughts ... every superfluity is lost, like water poured into a vessel already full."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"These are some of the general heads, under which may be arranged the manifold treasures of human Memory."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1784

"And hence it will follow, that with the foregoing exceptions, we may, among Europeans, bring genius to actual admeasurement, and determine its degrees by the size of the possessor's head, just as an exciseman gauges a beer barrel."

— Ramsay, James (1733-1789)

Date: 1784

"Blest is yon shepherd, on the turf reclin'd, / Who on the varied clouds which float above / Lies idly gazing--while his vacant mind / Pours out some tale antique of rural love!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1785

"Such rapture filled Lactilla's vacant soul, / When the bright Moralist, in softness dressed, / Opes all the glories of the mental world, / Deigns to direct the infant thought, to prune / The budding sentiment, uprear the stalk / Of feeble fancy, bid idea live, / Woo the abstracted spirit form i...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

"Then thro' her stores shall active mem'ry rove."

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1785

"The analogy between memory and a repository, and between remembering and retaining, is obvious and is to be found in all languages."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"He [Johnson] said, he did not grudge Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the House of Commons, mere...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"His mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a poet."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"Meals are wished for from the cravings of vacuity of mind, as well as from the desire of eating."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)