Date: 1755
The "busy Statesman's mind" may grow putrid on the throne of power so that "Fresh vices spring up ev'ry hour; / As in dead corses serpents breed, / And loathsome, on corruption feed"
preview | full record— Derrick, Samuel (1724-1769)
Date: 1755
Samuel Johnson has a "well-turn'd mind" and a "genius pure, as gold refin'd"
preview | full record— Derrick, Samuel (1724-1769)
Date: 1755
"My heart was free from care: / Love was a stranger to my breast"
preview | full record— Derrick, Samuel (1724-1769)
Date: 1756
"Many Things have been said, and very well undoubtedly, on the Subjection in which we should preserve our Bodies to the Government of our Understanding; but enough has not been said upon the Restraint which our bodily Necessities ought to lay on the extravagant Sublimities, and excentrick Rovings...
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1756
"Yet we have implanted in us by Providence Ideas, Axioms, Rules, of what is pious, just, fair, honest, which no Political Craft, nor learned Sophistry, can entirely expel from our Breasts."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1756
"But the Truth is, this unnatural Power corrupts both the Heart, and the Understanding. And to prevent the least Hope of Amendment, a King is ever surrounded by a Crowd of infamous Flatterers, who find their Account in keeping him from the least Light of Reason, till all Ideas of Rectitude and Ju...
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1756
"When I confess that I think this Notion a Mistake, I know to whom I am speaking, for I am satisfied that Reasons are like Liquors, and there are some of such a Nature as none but strong Heads can bear."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1756
"They have inlisted Reason to fight against itself, and employ it's whole Force to prove that it is an insufficient Guide to them in the Conduct of their Lives."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1756
"Not only their Understandings labour continually, which is the severest Labour, but their Hearts are torn by the worst, most troublesome, and insatiable of all Passions, by Avarice, by Ambition, by Fear and Jealousy. No part of the Mind has Rest. Power gradually extirpates from the Mind every hu...
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1756
"But the Passions which prop these Opinions are withdrawn one after another, and the cool Light of Reason at the Setting of our Life shews us what a false Splendor played upon these Objects during our more sanguine Seasons."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)