Date: 1775

"Momus well wished a window in every man's breast. Physiognomists pretend they can take a peep through the features of the face; but this is too abstruse a science to answer the general purposes of life; besides that education may render such knowledge doubtful, as in the case of Socrates."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"The remainder of this speech is worth quoting, both on account of the fine poetical imagery it contains, and in order to shew the strong terror which guilt had impressed on his mind, by his invoking even inanimate matter not to inform against him."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"In the first part of my remark on the second Scene above, I have observed upon the impressions that a disturbed mind is apt to stamp on our dreams and sight."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"Coriolanus has here carried his sternness, and the strained principles of stoical pride, whose throne is only in the mind, as far as they could go; and now great Nature, whose more sovereign seat of empire is in the heart, takes her turn to triumph; for upon the joint prayers, tears, and intreat...

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"There is a contagion in minds and manners, as well as in bodies, when corrupt."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"But, as I have said before, I do not think that ethic philosophy can ever be a gainer, by overstraining the sinews of the human mind."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"In this scenic province of instruction, our representations are much better calculated to answer the end proposed, than those of the Antients were, on account of the different hours of exhibition. Theirs were performed in the morning; which circumstance suffered the salutary effect to be worn ou...

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"I am provoked at this natural incapacity of conveying my sentiments to you; words are but a cloak, or rather a clog, to our ideas; there should be no curtain before the hearts of friends; and the longing I have ever felt for an intuitive converse, is to me a strong argument for a future state."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"A thousand disagreeable images rushed on my imagination, in that instant, I crushed their growth, and talked of India, of my other sisters, Lucy, and Mrs. Selwyn, and of you also, till we were summoned to the saloon, where supper was prepared for me."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"I have very uneasy apprehensions, tho' I hope they are not well founded, that Sir James Desmond's ruling passion is the love of play."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)