Date: 1741

"On the contrary, in old Age, Men have a very feeble Remembrance of Things that were done of late, i.e. the same Day or Week or Year; the Brain is grown so hard that the present Images or Strokes make little or no Impression, and therefore they immediately vanish."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Prisco in his seventy eighth Year will tell long Stories of Things done when he was in the Battle at the Boyne almost fifty Years ago, and when he studied at Oxford seven Years before; for those Impressions were made when the Brain was more susceptive of them; they have been deeply engraven at t...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"But Words and Things which he lately spoke or did, they are immediately forgot, because the Brain is now grown more dry and solid in its Consistence, and receives not much more impression than if you wrote with your Finger on a Floor of Clay, or a plaister'd Wall."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"But in the middle Stage of Life, or it may be from fifteen to fifty Years of Age, the Memory is generally in its happiest State, the Brain easily receives and long retains the Images and Traces which are impress'd upon on it, and the natural Spirits are more active to range these little infinite...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"When the Attention is strongly fixed to any particular Subject, all that is said concerning it makes a deeper impression upon the Mind."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"There are are some Persons who complain they cannot remember divine or human Discourses which they hear, when in Truth their Thoughts are wandering half the Time, or they hear with such coldness and Indifferency and a trifling Temper of Spirit, that it is no wonder the Things which are read or s...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Therefore it is that the Rules of Grammar, and useful Examples of the Variation of Words, and the peculiar Forms of Speech in any Language, are so often appointed by the Master as lessons for the Scholars to be frequently repeated; and they are contracted into Tables for frequent Review, that wh...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Maronides had got the first hundred Lines of Virgil's 'Æneis' printed upon his Memory so perfectly, that he knew not only the Order and Number of every Verse from one to a hundred in Perfection, but the Order and Number of every Word in each Verse also."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"It is also by this Association of Ideas that we may better imprint any new Idea upon the Memory by joining with it some Circumstance of the Time, Place, Company, &c. wherein we first observed, heard or learnt it."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Let every thing we desire to remember be fairly and distinctly written and divided into Periods, with large Characters in the Beginning; for by this Means we shall the more readily imprint the Matter and Words on our Minds, and recollect them with a Glance, the more remarkable the Writi...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)