Date: 1762-1763

"Youth is the best season wherein to acquire knowledge, tis a season when we are freest from care, the mind is then unencumbered & more capable of receiving impressions than in an advanced age—in youth the mind is like a tender twig, which you may bend as you please, but in age like a sturdy oak ...

— Adams, Abigail (1744-1818)

Date: October 10, 1769

"My imagination without wing or broom stick off mounts aloft, rises into ye Regions of pure space, and without lett or impediment bears me to your fireside, where you can set me in your easy chair, and we talk and reason, as angel Host and guest Aetherial should do, of high and important matters."

— Montagu [née Robinson], Elizabeth (1718-1800)

Date: 1773

"Though you are so happy as to have parents, who are both capable and desirous of giving you all proper instruction, yet I, who love you so tenderly, cannot help fondly wishing to contribute something, if possible, to your improvement and welfare: and, as I am so far separated from you, that it i...

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1773

"The great laws of morality are indeed written in our hearts, and may be discovered by reason: but our reason is of slow growth, very unequally dispensed to different persons, liable to error, and confined within very narrow limits in all."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1773

"May you be enabled, by reading them frequently, to transfuse into your own breast that holy flame which inspired the writer!"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1773

"Every word that fell from his lips is more precious than all the treasures of the earth; for his 'are the words of eternal life!' They must therefore be laid up in your heart, and constantly referred to on all occasions, as the rule and direction of all your actions."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1773

"Instead of contemplating our own fancied perfections, or even real superiority with self-complacence, religion will teach us to 'look into ourselves, and fear:' the best of us, God knows, have enough to fear, if we honestly search into all the dark recesses of the heart, and bring out every thou...

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1773

"Compassion, for instance, was not impressed upon the human heart, only to adorn the fair face with tears, and to give an agreeable languor to the eyes; it was designed to excite our utmost endeavours to relieve the sufferer."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1773

"Human nature is ever liable to corruption, and has in it the seeds of every vice, as well as of every virtue; and the first will be continually shooting forth and growing up, if not carefully watched and rooted out as fast as they appear."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1773

"[Y]et so much more is the understanding blinded, when once the fancy is captivated, that it seems a desperate undertaking to convince a girl in love that she has mistaken the character of the man she prefers."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)