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Date: 1790, 1794

"How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain!"

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

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Date: December 1790

"But it was the poor man with only his native dignity who was thus oppressed – and only metaphysical sophists and cold mathematicians can discern this insubstantial form; it is a work of abstraction – and a gentleman of lively imagination must borrow some drapery from fancy before he can love or ...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

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Date: December 10, 1790; 1791

"When the Student has been habituated to this grand conception of the Art, when the relish for this stile is established, makes a part of himself, and is woven into his mind, he will, by this time, have got a power of selecting from whatever occurs in nature that is grand, and corresponds with th...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

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Date: 1794

"When we are suddenly awaked by any violent stimulus, the surprise totally disunites the trains of our sleeping ideas from these of our waking ones; but if we gradually awake, this does not happen; and we readily unravel the preceding trains of imagination."

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

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Date: 1796

"WIT on all points is out of season, / It's use is to embroider reason."

— Courtenay, John Lees (1775?-1794)

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Date: 1796

"Good sense like cloth, the ground-work place, / And then sow on your Wit and lace."

— Courtenay, John Lees (1775?-1794)

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Date: 1797

"Thus on the golden thread that Fancy weaves / Buoyant, as Hope's illusive flattery breathes, / The young and visionary Poet leaves / Life's dull realities, while sevenfold wreaths / Of rainbow light around his head revolve."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.