Date: 1744

"The Preservation of Life, the defending the human Body from Decay, and of rendering it a fit Tenement for the Soul to inhabit, in that Season in which she is most capable of exerting her noblest Faculties, are grave and ferious Subjects; with which no trivial Matters ought to mingle."

— Campbell, John (1708-75)

Date: 1744

"These are the Exercises of the Understanding, and in these, as in a Chariot, the Soul takes the Air; while I am capable of these, I don't give myself much concern about bodily Decays, I am always at the Command of my Friends attend the Service of the House frequently, and distinguish myself in D...

— Campbell, John (1708-75)

Date: 1744, 1746

"Wide-stretching from these shores, / A people savage from remotest time, / A huge neglected empire, one vast mind, / By Heaven inspired, from gothic darkness call'd."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1744, 1746

"That with the vivid energy of sense, / The truth of Nature, which with Attic point / And kind well temper'd satire, smoothly keen, / Steals through the soul, and without pain corrects."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"O keep the dear impression on your breast, / Nor idly loose it for a wretched jest.

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"Truth is an amiable and delightful Object to the Eye of the Mind, but it is not easily apprehended by the Bulk of Mankind; especially if it be remote from common Observation, or abstracted from sensible Experience."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1745

"The Ideas must be cloathed in a bodily Form, to make it visible and palpable to the gross Understanding."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1745

"We are told by Philosophers, of no small Note, that the Mind is, at first, a kind of Tabula rasa, or like a Piece of blank Paper, that it bears no original Inscriptions, when we come into the World,--that we owe all the Characters afterwards drawn upon it, to the Impressions made upon our Senses...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1745

"As little would I agree with those Philosophers Constant mentioned, that the Mind resembles a Leaf of white Paper."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1745

"I would rather compare it [the mind] to a Seed, which contains all the Stamina of the future Plant, and all those Principles of Perfection, to which it aspires in its After-growth, and regularly arrives by gradual Stages, unless it is obstructed in its Progress by external Violence."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)