Date: Monday, June 30, 1712

"There is yet another Circumstance which recommends a Description more than all the rest, and that is if it represents to us such Objects as are apt to raise a secret Ferment in the Mind of the Reader, and to work, with Violence, upon his Passions."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Monday, June 30, 1712

"It is not strange, that we should take Delight in such Passions as are apt to produce Hope, Joy, Admiration, Love, or the like Emotions in us, because they never rise in the Mind without an inward Pleasure which attends them."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Wednesday, July 2, 1712

"The Understanding, indeed, opens an infinite Space on every side of us, but the Imagination, after a few faint Efforts, is immediately at a stand, and finds her self swallowed up in the Immensity of the Void that surrounds it"

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Wednesday, July 2, 1712

"Our Reason can pursue a Particle of Matter through an infinite Variety of Divisions, but the Fancy soon loses sight of it, and feels in it self a kind of Chasm, that wants to be filled with Matter of a more sensible Bulk."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Wednesday, July 2, 1712

"Perhaps there may not be room in the Brain for such a variety of Impressions, or the Animal Spirits may be incapable of figuring them in such a manner, as is necessary to excite so very large or very minute Ideas."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 21, 1712

"The Colours paint themselves on the Fancy, with very little Attention of Thought or Application of Mind in the Beholder."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 21, 1712

"[Sight] fills the Mind with the largest Variety of Ideas, converses with its Objects at the greatest Distance, and continues the longest in Action without being tired or satiated with its proper Enjoyments."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 21, 1712

"We cannot indeed have a single Image in the Fancy that did not make its first Entrance through the Sight; but we have the Power of retaining, altering and compounding those Images, which we have once received, into all the varieties of Picture and Vision that are most agreeable to the Imaginatio...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 21, 1712

"For this Reason Sir Francis Bacon, in his Essay upon Health, has not thought it improper to prescribe to his Reader a Poem or a Prospect, where he particularly dissuades him from knotty and subtile Disquisitions, and advises him to pursue Studies that fill the Mind with splendid and illustrious ...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, June 28, 1712

"The Sett of Ideas, which we received from such a Prospect or Garden, having entered the Mind at the same time, have a Sett of Traces belonging to them in the Brain, bordering very near upon one another; when, therefore, any one of these Ideas arises in the Imagination, and consequently dispatche...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)