Date: 1785

"To entertain a visionary notion that one sees a distant or future event, may be called superstition; but the correspondence of the fact or event with such an impression on the fancy, though certainly very wonderful, if proved, has no more connection with superstition, than magnetism or electrici...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: December 10, 1784; 1785

"I would rather wish a Student, as soon as he goes abroad, to employ himself upon whatever he has been incited to, by any immediate impulse, than to go sluggishly about a prescribed task; whatever he does in such a state of mind little advantage accrues from it, as nothing sinks deep enough to le...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: May 18, 1782, 1785

"Nor complain of hard fate; but imprint on your mind, / That true pleasures should be like rich odours confin'd."

— Pilon, Frederick (1750-1788)

Date: 1786

"Our minds are like blank paper, as a great philosopher has observed, and the first impressions they receive are generally the most permanent and powerful."

— Anonymous

Date: 1787

"The soft parental rapture, fond embrace, / Kind gratulation, smile of filial love, / All form a deep impression"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1787

"Still wilt thou hang upon my joyless soul / That clasps thy dear impression"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1787

"The sons of Rome ne'er felt the soft control / Of milky kindness stealing o'er the soul, / Nor did their nerves to pleasure's touch awake / Of gentler thoughts the mild impression take;"

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: December 11, 1786; 1787

"A man endowed with this faculty, feels and acknowledges the truth, though it is not always in his power, perhaps, to give a reason for it; because he cannot recollect and bring present before him all the materials that gave birth to his opinion; for very many and very intricate considerations, m...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 11, 1786; 1787

"A landskip thus conducted, under the influence of a Poetical mind, will have the same superiority over the more ordinary and common views, as Milton's Allegro and Penseroso have over a cold prosaic narration or description; and such a Picture would make a more forcible impression on the mind tha...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1787

"That frequently happens; and when once a false idea is impressed, it is very difficult to erase it, particularly at your age; as you are not yet capable of distinguishing the false from the true."

— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)