Date: Published serially, 1765-1770

"These ever apparent Ensigns of so dearly purchased Benefits shall inevitably attract the Wills of all Creatures, they shall cause all Hearts and Affections to rush and cleave to him, as Steel Dust rushes to Adamant, and as Spokes stick in the Nave whereon they are centred."

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1790

"She was indeed persuaded, that she felt no other uneasiness than what arose from the agitation with which she perceived that Seymour's mind was struggling; but perhaps there was something of self-deception in this young lady's reflections; as to a passenger, in a boat that glides rapidly down a ...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1797

"She feared to think, and still more to name it; yet, so acutely susceptible was her pride, so stern her indignation, and so profound her desire of vengeance, that her mind was tossed as on a tempestuous ocean, and these terrible feelings threatened to overwhelm the residue of humanity in her hea...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1851

"The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run."

— Melville, Herman (1819-1891)

Date: 1855, 1856

"Ah, these currents spin one's head round almost as much as they do the ship."

— Melville, Herman (1819-1891)

Date: 1922

"Though they didn't see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy there somehow was as if both minds were travelling, so to speak, in the one train of thought."

— Joyce, James (1882-1941)

Date: 1992

" He was dangerously obsessed, dangerously obsessed. And his thoughts, like a bobsleigh walled with ice, would not change their course until he had crashed or achieved his end."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1996

"Drinking caffeine is thus like putting a block of wood under one of the brain's primary brake pedals."

— Braun, Stephen

Date: 1996

"You would certainly feel stimulated, since one of your brain's main "brakes" would be disabled. But other brakes, such as GABA, would still be functioning and in the absence of any extra direct stimulants overall activity wouldn't kindle into the kind of neural conflagration that can occur with ...

— Braun, Stephen

Date: 1997

"Forgive me, Friend, I've again presum'd our Minds running before the same Wind."

— Pynchon, Thomas (b. 1937)