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)

Date: 1785

"I beg leave to say something upon second sight, of which I have related two instances, as they impressed my mind at the time."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"To entertain a visionary notion that one sees a distant or future event, may be called superstition; but the correspondence of the fact or event with such an impression on the fancy, though certainly very wonderful, if proved, has no more connection with superstition, than magnetism or electrici...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"The mind of man can bear a certain pressure; but there is a point when it can bear no more."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"I answered I would not; and he applauded my setting such a value on an accession of new images in my mind."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: December 10, 1784; 1785

"I would rather wish a Student, as soon as he goes abroad, to employ himself upon whatever he has been incited to, by any immediate impulse, than to go sluggishly about a prescribed task; whatever he does in such a state of mind little advantage accrues from it, as nothing sinks deep enough to le...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1784; 1785

"The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an Artist is found in the great works of his predecessors."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1785

"To apply his great mind to minute particulars, is wrong: it is like taking an immense balance, such as is kept on quays for weighing cargoes of ships, to weigh a guinea. I knew I had neat little scales, which would do better; and that his attention to every thing which falls in his way, and his ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1786

"Remember (continued he) that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air."

— Piozzi, [née Salusbury; other married name Thrale] Hester Lynch (1741-1821)

Date: 1786

"In one of these early excursions, her humanity had been excited by a scene of such exquisite misery that it long made an impression on her tender mind, and sowed the first seeds of benevolence in her heart."

— Anonymous