Date: 1741

"He supposed that a philosopher's brain was like a great forest, where ideas ranged like animals of several kinds; that those ideas copulated and engendered conclusions; that when those different species copulate, they bring forth monsters and absurdities; that the major is the male, the minor th...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)

Date: Tuesday, March 12, 1751

"There is no snare more dangerous to busy and excursive minds, than the cobwebs of petty inquisitiveness, which entangle them in trivial employments and minute studies, and detain them in a middle state, between the tediousness of total inactivity, and the fatigue of laborious efforts, enchant th...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)