Samuel Johnson on Mind

"The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."

"A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity."

"A fellow that makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar-cruet."

"This man, I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!"

"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else."

"It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age."

"Attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds."

"That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one."

"Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed."

"Language is the dress of thought."

"Some," answered Imlac, "have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science, concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter."

"It was never supposed that cogitation is inherent in matter, or that every particle is a thinking being. Yet, if any part of matter be devoid of thought, what part can we suppose to think? Matter can differ from matter only in form, density, bulk, motion, and direction of motion: to which of these, however varied or combined, can consciousness be annexed? To be round or square, to be solid or fluid, to be great or little, to be moved slowly or swiftly one way or another, are modes of material existence, all equally alien from the nature of cogitation. If matter be once without thought, it can only be made to think by some new modification, but all the modifications which it can admit are equally unconnected with cogitative powers."