Date: 1740

"But notwithstanding the empire of the imagination, there is a secret tie or union among particular ideas, which causes the mind to conjoin them more frequently together, and makes the one, upon its appearance, introduce the other."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1740

"Hence arises what we call the apropos of discourse: hence the connection of writing: and hence that thread, or chain of thought, which a man naturally supports even in the loosest reverie."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1740

"For as it is by means of thought only that any thing operates upon our passions, and as these are the only ties of our thoughts, they are really to us the cement of the universe, and all the operations of the mind must, in a great measure, depend on them."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1744

"We wish our names eternally to live: / Wild dream! which ne'er had haunted human thought / Had not our natures been eternal too."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"To store up treasure with incessant toil,-- / This is man's province, this his highest praise, / To this great end keen Instinct stings him on. / To guide that Instinct, Reason! is thy charge; / 'Tis thine to tell us where true treasure lies."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Yet still, through their disgrace [the passions'], no feeble ray / Of greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell: / But these (like that fallen monarch [Adam] when reclaim'd) / When Reason moderates the rein aright, / Shall re-ascend, remount their former sphere, / Where once they soar'd il...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"This all-pervading, this all-conscious soul, / This particle of energy Divine, / Which travels Nature, flies from star to star, / And visits gods, and emulates their powers, / For ever is extinguish'd"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"In the coarse drudgeries and sinks of Sense, / Your souls have quite worn out the make of Heaven, / By vice new-cast, and creatures of your own."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Can such a soul contract itself, to gripe / A point of no dimension, of no weight?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1751

"If motives be of very different kinds, with regard to strength and influence, which we feel to be the case; it is involved in the very idea of the strongest motive, that it must have the strongest effect in determining the mind. This can no more be doubted of, than that, in a balance, the greate...

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)