Date: 1783

" In this way, too, we learn to think for ourselves, and acquire in time a stock of knowledge that is properly of our own growth: which is proof, that our minds are really cultivated, and serves as an encouragement to persist in making further acquisitions."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"Traders often revise their books; to see whether every thing be neat, and accurate, and in its proper place. Students, in like manner, should often revise their knowledge, or at least the more useful branches of it; renew those impressions on the Memory, which had begun to decay through length o...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"If, therefore, you are well instructed in theology, the argument of every Sermon will be familiar to you; on every such argument your mind will be stored with a great variety of expression; you can never be at a loss for topicks; and your quotations will be no burden to your Memory"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"[W]hat Horace observes of words is equally true of thoughts ... every superfluity is lost, like water poured into a vessel already full."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"If the mind is not vacant, Attention will be painful, and interrupted, and the Memory slow to receive any durable impression"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"What toil and perseverance, in cultivating the bodily powers, must it require, to qualify the tumbler for those feats of activity, with which he astonishes mankind! [... ]Were we to take equal pains in the improvement of our intellectual and moral nature, which are surely not less susceptible of...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"These are some of the general heads, under which may be arranged the manifold treasures of human Memory."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1796

"He who feels the spirit in him, will be conscious of possessing the pearl of great price, and will lock it up in the sanctuary of his heart, as his richest treasure, never to be despoiled of it by the seducing arts of false philosophy; never to exchange that pure gold, which is the same yesterda...

— Anonymous

Date: 1797

"To come a little closer to the point, we strongly suspect the fancy's coinage in this affair, and that he is, bona fide, the offspring of a Bristol brain, instead of a province of Persia."

— Anonymous

Date: 1891

"For what is mind but motion in the intellectual sphere?"

— Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills (1854-1900)