page 5 of 20     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1773, 1894-1895

"For what the Bark is to the growing Tree, / To human Mind, that, Patience seems to be; / They hold the Principles of Growth together, / And blunt the Force of Accident, and Weather."

— Byrom, John (1692-1763)

preview | full record

Date: 1773, 1894-1895

"Patience defends us from all outward Hap; / Of inward Life Thanksgiving is the Sap."

— Byrom, John (1692-1763)

preview | full record

Date: 1773

Toil and danger "feed and ripen minds" (not "meats and drinks" or "balmy airs, and vernal suns and showers")

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

preview | full record

Date: 1774

"Were it necessary to produce instances of a fruitful imagination unproductive of true genius, we might find enough among those pretenders to poetry, who can, through many lines, run from one shining image to another, and finish many harmonious periods, without any sentiment or design; or among t...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

preview | full record

Date: 1774

"When a vegetable draws in moisture from the earth, nature, by the same action by which it draws it in, and at the same time, converts it to the nourishment of the plant: it at once circulates through its vessels, and is assimilated to its several parts. In like manner, genius arranges its ideas ...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

preview | full record

Date: 1774

"As a rich soil produces not only the largest quantity of grain, but also the greatest profusion of such weeds as tend to choak it; so a fertile imagination, along with just and useful ideas, produces many trifling, false, and improper thoughts, which, if they be not immediately examined by reaso...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

preview | full record

Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"The mind is but a barren soil; is a soil soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilised and enriched with foreign matter."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

preview | full record

Date: 1774

"Hence Princes generally neglect nothing which may bring luxury into esteem: they recommend it by their example; they display every where pageantry and magnificence, and are the first to sow in the minds of their subjects those seeds of corruption."

— Marat, Jean-Paul (1743-1793)

preview | full record

Date: 1775

Young thought is "spread" by "kindly cares"

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

preview | full record

Date: 1775

"Vital airs" alone will not impart "health and vigour" to the soul

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

preview | full record

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.