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Date: 1789

"While in Fancy's ear / As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell, / The Enthusiast of the Lyre, who wander'd here, / Seems yet to strike his visionary shell, / Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear / Or wake wild frenzy--from her hideous cell!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

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Date: 1790

"If it is excessive, I will go to a house from whence no tyrant can remove me. I keep in mind always that the door is open, that I can walk out when I please, and retire to that hospitable house which is at all times open to all the world; for beyond my undermost garment, beyond my body, no man l...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

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Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

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Date: 1790, 1794

"How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain!"

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

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Date: 1790

"Persuaded that all things ought to be done with reference, and referring all to the point of reference to which all should be directed, they think themselves bound, not only as individuals in the sanctuary of the heart, or as congregated in that personal capacity, to renew the m...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

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Date: December 1790

"To argue from experience, it should seem as if the human mind, averse to thought, could only be opened by necessity; for, when it can take opinions on trust, it gladly lets the spirit lie quiet in its gross tenement."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

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Date: December 1790

"Go hence, thou slave of impulse, look into the private recesses of thy heart, and take not a mote from thy brother’s eye, till thou hast removed the beam from thine own."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

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Date: 1791, 1806

"When from the festive bow'r / The frenzied Homicide retreats, / And, in his bosom's cell, / Essays each rising throb to quell;"

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

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Date: 1791, 1806

"Yet in my bosom's ruby cell / The philosophic lore shall live!"

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

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Date: 1791, 1794

"'I cannot believe it possible,' said Montraville, 'that a mind once so pure as Charlotte Temple's, should so suddenly become the mansion of vice."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

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