Date: 1706

"My Heart is full of Sin; My Life is full of Sin; I am under the wrath of God for Sin; I am a Slave to Sin and Satan."

— Mather, Cotton (1663-1728)

Date: 1799

"My mind was so full of objects of more urgent moment that the propriety of taking them [his shoes] along with me never occurred."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1800

"Others, unemployed, were strolling to and fro, and testified to their vacancy of thought and care by humming or whistling a tune."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1800

"My mind gradually expanded itself, as it were, for the reception of new ideas."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1800

"The image of Achsa filled my fancy, but it was the harbinger of nothing but humiliation and sorrow."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1845

"They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish."

— Douglass, Frederick (1818-1895)

Date: October 10, 1869

"Recitations alone readily degenerate into dusty repetitions, and lectures alone are too often a useless expenditure of force. The lecturer pumps laboriously into sieves. The water may be wholesome, but it runs through."

— Eliot, Charles William (1834-1926)

Date: 1922

"The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together."

— Eliot, T. S. (1888-1965)

Date: 1922

"The joy in your maturity at length, / The peace that filled my soul like cooling wine, / When you responded to my tender strength, / And pressed your heart exulting into mine."

— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)

Date: 1940

"Well I really wouldn't care to scratch your surface, Mr. Kralik, because I know exactly what I'd find. Instead of a heart, a hand-bag. Instead of a soul, a suitcase. And instead of an intellect, a cigarette lighter... which doesn't work."

— Raphaelson, Samson (1894-1983)