Date: 1757
"Now this great Ambition, which in other Times or Nations hath wrought such wonderful Effects, is no longer to be found among us. It is the Pride of Equipage, the Pride of Title, the Pride of Fortune, or the Pride of Dress, that have assumed the Empire over our Souls, and levelled Ambition with t...
preview | full record— Brown, John (1715-1766)
Date: 1757
"Let low-bred Minds be curb'd by Laws and Rules, / Our higher Spirit leaps the Bounds of Fools"
preview | full record— Garrick, David (1717-1779)
Date: 1757, 1758, 1771, 1777
"Ah Goddess! cease / Thus with terrific forms to rack my brain; / These horrid phantoms shake the throne of peace, / And Reason calls her boasted powers in vain.
preview | full record— Dodsley, Robert (1703-1764)
Date: w. 1755-1757, 1768
Horror may be a "tyrant of the throbbing breast"
preview | full record— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)
Date: 1759
"In the fairyland of fancy, genius may wander wild; there it has a creative power, and may reign arbitrarily over its own empire of chimeras."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1759
"You will easily believe that I was pleased with his courtesy; and finding that his predominant passion was desire of money, I began now to think my danger less, for I knew that no sum would be thought too great for the release of Pekuah."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1759
"He shewed, with great strength of sentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1759
"The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impressed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1759
"He shewed, with great strength of sentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues but the natural effect of unlawful go...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1759
"By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time despotick."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)