Date: April, 1871

"Once acutely felt, I believe it is indelible; at least, it does something to the mind which it is hard for anything else to undo."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"In the same way, I think, experience proves that no one who has had real passionate conviction of a creed, the sort of emotion that burns hot upon the brain, can ever be indifferent to that creed again."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Many beliefs, in Coleridge's happy phrase, slumber in the 'dormitory of the soul'; they are present to the consciousness, but they incite to no action."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Strong convictions gave him a kind of cramp in the will, and he could not act on them."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Intensity. This is the main cause why the ideas that flash on the minds of seers, as in Scott's description, are believed; they come mostly when the nerves are exhausted by fasting, watching and longing; they have a peculiar brilliancy, and therefore they are believed."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"There are, it is true, some minds which a mathematician might describe as minds of 'contrary flexure,' whose particular bent it is to contradict what those around them say."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"And in violent cases of mania, where the mind is shut up within itself, and cannot, from impotence, perceive what is without, it is as sure of the most chance fancy, as in health it would be of the best proved truths."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"They are all from various causes "adhesive" states--states which it is very difficult to get rid of, and which, in consequence, have retained their power of creating belief in the mind, when other states, which once possessed it too, have quite lost it."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Constantly impressed ideas are brought back by the world around us, and if they are so often, get so tied to our other ideas that we can hardly wrench them away."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Interesting ideas stick in the mind by the associations which give them interest."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)