page 2 of 7     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1901-2, 1902

"We must class him, like Bunyan and Tolstoy, amongst those upon whose soul the iron of melancholy left a permanent imprint."

— James, William (1842-1910)

preview | full record

Date: 1901-2, 1902

"Speaking generally, our moral and practical attitude, at any given time, is always a resultant of two sets of forces within us, impulses pushing us one way and obstructions and inhibitions holding us back. "Yes! yes!" say the impulses; "No! no !" say the inhibitions."

— James, William (1842-1910)

preview | full record

Date: 1901-2, 1902

"Few people who have not expressly reflected on the matter realize how constantly this factor of inhibition is upon us, how it contains and moulds us by its restrictive pressure almost as if we were fluids pent within the cavity of a jar."

— James, William (1842-1910)

preview | full record

Date: 1901-2, 1902

"Every individual soul, in short, like every individual machine or organism, has its own best conditions of efficiency. A given machine will run best under a certain steam-pressure, a certain amperage; an organism under a certain diet, weight, or exercise."

— James, William (1842-1910)

preview | full record

Date: 1902

"Suddenly, in the midst of some train of thought, rises the sought-for line, like a ghost out of a gulf."

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

preview | full record

Date: 1902

"The whole process, unless interrupted, would according to this hypothesis, run down like an alarm-clock; or it would be as with a row of bricks appropriately arranged: as the top portion of the first brick received a push in the direction of the other bricks, it would fall on the second brick, w...

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

preview | full record

Date: 1902

"An image is like the painter's Madonna or the sculptor's Diana: it is the result of delicate workmanship."

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

preview | full record

Date: 1902

"If it were otherwise, no one could even set down on paper a closely reasoned argument, for the attention would be skipping like a stone hurrying down a sharp incline, or it would be moving hither and thither like a helpless shuttlecock at the mercy of eager players."

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

preview | full record

Date: 1902

"Looking back upon our own thought, we observe no Subject, like an admiral on the bridge of his flagship, dictating and controlling, some man above the man or in the man; we only note a process of development which requires no such assumption."

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

preview | full record

Date: 1902

"However, in the common order of things, alas, 'the mind is an orchestra, where the musicians are not always in agreement; where the conductor, when there is one, is not always obeyed.'"

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

preview | full record

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.