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: January 1739

"I have already observed, in examining the foundation of mathematics, that the imagination, when set into any train of thinking, is apt to continue even when its object fails it, and, like a galley put in motion by the oars, carries on its course without any new impulse."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"The thought slides along the succession with equal facility, as if it consider'd only one object; and therefore confounds the succession with the identity."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"But my Weakness of Body made me move so slowly, that it gave Time for a little Reflection, a Ray of Grace, to dart in upon my benighted Mind; and so, when I came to the Pond-side, I sat myself down on the sloping Bank, and began to ponder my wretched Condition: And thus I reason'd with myself."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741

"I [the mind] did but step out, on some weighty affairs, / To visit last night, my good friends in the stars, / When, before I was got half as high as the moon, / You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down; / Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight, / And shut me in caverns as dark...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"He whose Thoughts are very fluttering and wandering, and cannot be fixed attentively to a few Ideas successively, will never be able to survey many and various objects distinctly at once, but will certainly be overwhelm'd and confounded with the Multiplicity of them."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"An active Fancy readily wanders over a multitude of objects, and is continually entertaining itself with new flying Images; it runs thro' a Number of new Scenes or new Pages with pleasure, but without due Attention, and seldom suffers itself to dwell long enough upon any one of them to make a de...

— 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: 1742

"Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far, / And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast: / Auspicious era! golden days, begin!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"At home a stranger, / Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, / And wondering at her own."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)