Date: December 1790

"A few fundamental truths meet the first enquiry of reason, and appear as clear to an unwarped mind, as that air and bread are necessary to enable the body to fulfil its vital functions; but the opinions which men discuss with so much heat must be simplified and brought back to first principles; ...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1791, 1806

"Oh! horrid Night! / Thou prying Monitor confest! / Whose key unlocks the human breast, / And bares each avenue to mental sight!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"My personal freedom had been somewhat impaired by the House of Commons and the Board of Trade; but I was now delivered from the chain of duty and dependence, from the hopes and fears of political adventure: my sober mind was no longer intoxicated by the fumes of party, and I rejoiced in my escap...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"By many, conversation is esteemed as a theatre or a school: but, after the morning has been occupied by the labours of the library, I wish to unbend rather than to exercise my mind; and in the interval between tea and supper I am far from disdaining the innocent amusement of a game at cards."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1802

"Blest mirror! which can thus, with magic pow'r, / Give the rank weed the fragrance of the flow'r; / And from deformities,--without, within, / Spots in the mind, or specks upon the skin-- / Can all that's good, and all that's fair reflect, / And change to beauty, every dark defect."

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1797, 1806

"While shadows, blanks to reason's orb, / In dread succession haunt the brain"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1814

"They have injured the finest mind!--for sometimes, Fanny, I own to you, it does appear more than manner; it appears as if the mind itself was tainted."

— Austen, Jane (1775-1817)

Date: 1814, 1816, 1896

"How then should matron Mind, with filial fear, / Judge all the embryo thoughts engender'd there"

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)