Date: w. 1610-11, 1623
"The charm dissolves apace, / And as the morning steals upon the night, / Melting the darkness, so their rising senses / Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle / Their clearer reason."
preview | full record— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Date: 1701
"Beauty's the least prevailing Snare to me; tho' her great Soul makes me admire her Person; yet were she deform'd, Virtue, like the Sun, wou'd shine through every Cloud."
preview | full record— Baker, Thomas (b. 1680-1)
Date: January 29, 1737
"Nay, the Light of Reason, which we so much boast of, what is it but a Dark-Lanthorn, which just serves to keep us from running our Nose against a Post, perhaps; but is no more able to lead us out of the dark Mists of Error and Ignorance, in which we are lost, than an Ignis fatuus would be to co...
preview | full record— Dodsley, Robert (1703-1764)
Date: 1820
"And we breathe, and sicken not, / The atmosphere of human thought: / Be it dim, and dank, and gray, / Like a storm-extinguished day, / Travelled o'er by dying gleams; / Be it bright as all between / Cloudless skies and windless streams, / Silent, liquid, and serene; / As the birds within the win...
preview | full record— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)