Date: February 4, 1752

"When we are employed in reading a great and good Author, we ought to consider ourselves as searching after Treasures, which, if well and regularly laid up in the Mind, will be of use to us on sundry Occasions in our Lives."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: Saturday, Aug. 3, 1754; 1756

"The use of these kind of Figures in Tragedy should be as free and bold as possible, and with Respect to Expression, no other Regard is to be paid to it, than to chuse such Words as may be most significantly picturesque, in order to have the more lively Effect on the Imagination, the Passions bei...

— Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805)

Date: January 1762

"C’est lui qui porte le flambeau au fond de la caverne; c’est lui qui apprend à discerner les motifs subtils et déshonnêtes qui se cachent et se dérobent sous d’autres motifs qui sont honnêtes et qui se hâtent de se montrer les premiers. Il souffle sur le fantôme sublime qui se présente à l’entré...

— Diderot, Denis (1713-1784)

Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Only this more. The ideas--my lodgers--are of all sorts. Some, gentlemen of the law, who pay me a great deal more than others. Divines of all sorts have been with me, and have ever disturbed me. When I first took up house, Presbyterian ministers used to make me melancholy with dreary tones. Meth...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"He [Johnson] said, he did not grudge Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the House of Commons, mere...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"BOSWELL. 'But, sir,'tis like walking up and down a hill; one man will naturally do the one better than the other. A hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs being short; a dog down.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir; that is from mechanical powers. If you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that ma...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"He vociferated, and made an impression. There, again, was a mind like a hammer."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"He was too proud to submit, even for a moment, to be the object of ridicule, and instantly retaliated with such keen sarcastick wit, and such a variety of degrading images, of every one of which I was the object, that, though I can bear such attacks as well as most men, I yet found myself so muc...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"The very Highland names, or the sound of a bagpipe, will stir my blood, and fill me with a mixture of melancholy and respect for courage; with pity for an unfortunate and superstitious regard for antiquity, and thoughtless inclination for war; in short, with a crowd of sensations with which sobe...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"I have often experienced, that scenes through which a man has passed, improve by lying in the memory: they grow mellow."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)