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; ...
preview | full record— 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!"
preview | full record— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)
Date: January 19, 1791
"His blood they transfuse into their minds and into their manners."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
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...
preview | full record— 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."
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1800
"I merely write to allay those tumults which our necessary separation produces; to aid me in calling up a little patience, till the time arrives, when our persons, like our minds, shall be united forever."
preview | full record— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)
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."
preview | full record— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)
Date: 1797, 1806
"While shadows, blanks to reason's orb, / In dread succession haunt the brain"
preview | full record— 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."
preview | full record— Austen, Jane (1775-1817)
Date: 1814, 1816, 1896
"How then should matron Mind, with filial fear, / Judge all the embryo thoughts engender'd there"
preview | full record— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)