Date: 1820
"And they [Stewart, Tracy, Cabanis] ask why may not the mode of action called thought, have been given to a material organ of peculiar structure, as that of magnetism is to the needle, or of elasticity to the spring by a particular manipulation of the steel."
preview | full record— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)
Date: 1901-2, 1902
"It is as if a bar of iron, without touch or sight, with no representative faculty whatever, might nevertheless be strongly endowed with an inner capacity for magnetic feeling; and as if, through the various arousals of its magnetism by magnets coming and going in its neighborhood, it might be co...
preview | full record— James, William (1842-1910)
Date: 1992
"And all his scattered thoughts came rushing together, like loose iron filings as a magnet is held over them and draws them into the shape of a rose."
preview | full record— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)
Date: February 25, 2010
"This suggests that depressive disorder is an extreme form of an ordinary thought process, part of the dismal machinery that draws us toward our problems, like a magnet to metal."
preview | full record— Lehrer, Jonah