Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"I like Tragedy better than Comedy, where the Argument commonly is light, and is such as requires much of the Buffoon, whereas the former being great and Masculine, will be sure to leave a Tincture of something Noble upon the Mind of him who personates the Hero."

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"Learning ought to be infus'd into the Scholar like spirits into a Bottle, by little and little, for whosoever attempts to pour in all at once, may in all likelihood spill a great part, and in a great measure fill the Vessel with Wind and Air."

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: January 1739

"[I]t follows that every thing which invigorates and enlivens the soul, whether by touching the passions or imagination, naturally conveys to the fancy this inclination for ascent, and determines it to run against the natural stream of its thoughts and conceptions"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

Personal identity may be like a river which is totally alter'd "in less than four and twenty hours."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"Since the imagination, therefore, in running from low to high, finds an opposition in its internal qualities and principles, and since the soul, when elevated with joy and courage, in a manner seeks opposition, and throws itself with alacrity into any scene of thought or action where its courage...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"The vividness of the first conception diffuses itself along the relations, and is convey'd, as by so many pipes or canals, to every idea that has any communication with the primary one."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"The attention is on the stretch; the posture of the mind is uneasy; and the spirits being diverted from their natural course, are not governed in their movements by the same laws, at least not to the same degree, as when they flow in their usual channel."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: September 10, 1836

"Nevertheless, far different from the deaf and dumb nature around them, these all rest like fountain-pipes on the unfathomed sea of thought and virtue whereto they alone, of all organizations, are the entrances."

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: 1901-2, 1902

"Few people who have not expressly reflected on the matter realize how constantly this factor of inhibition is upon us, how it contains and moulds us by its restrictive pressure almost as if we were fluids pent within the cavity of a jar."

— James, William (1842-1910)

Date: March 11, 2011

"The huge submerged bulk of the mental iceberg, with its stores of memory and acquired skills that have become automatic, like language, driving and etiquette, supplies people with the raw materials on which they can exercise their reason and decide what to think and what to do."

— Nagel, Thomas (b. 1937)