Date: 1793

"A few pages of interesting anecdotes, afford ample food for the mind."

— Disraeli, Isaac (1766-1848)

Date: 1794

"Adjoining the library was a green-house, stored with scarce and beautiful plants; for one of the amusements of St. Aubert was the study of botany, and among the neighbouring mountains, which afforded a luxurious feast to the mind of the naturalist, he often passed the day in the pursuits of his ...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1814

"Instruction is the food of the mind; it is like the dew and the rain and the rich soil."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1814, 1816, 1896

"For when his Mind once tasted Wisdom's treat, / Her luscious liquors, and pure mental meat, / His Spirit, raptur'd o'er the rich repast, / Soon shrunk to learn life must so shortly last!"

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: August 31, 1837

"The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself."

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: 1851

"Indeed, it is the same with mental as with bodily food: scarcely the fifth part of what a man takes is assimilated; the remainder passes off in evaporation, respiration, and the like."

— Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788-1860)

Date: November and December 1853, 1856

"To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange wilfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience."

— Melville, Herman (1819-1891)

Date: 1897

"My mind feels like a Nesselrode pudding, cold, and stuffed with all sorts of things; but I’m certain, I sha’n’t ever forget the impression which the whole thing gives of magnificence and grandeur."

— Nixon-Roulet, Mary F.

Date: 1983

"My brain is like oatmeal."

— Hughes, John (1950-2009)

Date: 1988

"Just as a cake recipe requires you to use flour, sugar, and baking powder in the right amounts, your brain needs a fine chemical balance."

— Anonymous