Date: 1760

"What's a meditation, but a collection of the reveries of a mind; and what is of a more moving nature than the mind--so far from thinking in train, it flies from one subject to another, with a rapidity inexpressible--from meditating upon the planetary system, it can with ease deviate into a medit...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768) [attrib.]

Date: 1760

"Digressions too take place in philosophy; and oft we find the mind of a philosopher turns aside in a curve, flies off in a tangent, or springs up in a spiral line."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768) [attrib.]

Date: w. c. 1759-1791

"And this in some measure accounts why there are some heads so strange and whimsical, without any fixed Ideas at all, some exceedingly heavy and confusd; some working and whirling along with amazing rapidity, depending in a great measure upon the different movements of the machine as it works and...

— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)

Date: w. c. 1759-1791

"should it be granted me then that there is or may be such a machine or Gig in every mans head; that thus works and mills his Ideas, yet it may be questiond perhaps after all, what it is that can give it its first motion."

— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)

Date: w. c. 1759-1791

"I will be the Director of no mans opinion but he who is anatomically acquainted with the processus Zygomaticus, the processus Hyloides, or the processius mammillaris; will easily grant me all this may be performd by the air that is received by the ear, or mouth only; so that it is reasonable to ...

— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)

Date: 1761

"I can form a just comparison between those great objects and the little objects around me, in no other way than by transporting myself, at least in fancy, to a different station, from whence I can survey both at nearly equal distances, and thereby form some judgment of their real proportions."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1762

"The mind falls with a heavy body, descends with a river, and ascends with flame and smoke."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1762

"This vibration of the mind in passing and repassing betwixt things that are related, explains the facts above mentioned."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1762

"In the same manner, good news arriving to a man labouring under distress, occasions a vibration in his mind from the one to the other."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1762

"This is verified by experience; from which we learn, that different passions having the same end in view, impel the mind to action with united force. The mind receives not impulses alternately from these passions, but one strong impulse from the whole in conjunction."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)