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...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1774

One should hoard up, while young, "a great stock of knowledge" so that it may be depended upon as a public granary is in years of scarcity

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1784

"The curious structure of these visual orbs, / The windows of the mind; substance how clear, / Aqueous, or crystalline! through which the soul, / As thro' a glass, all outward things surveys."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1784

"But, for the furniture within, / Whether it be of brains, or lead, / What matters it, so there's a head?"

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1784

"Nor is it thinking much, but doing, / That keeps our tenements from ruin"

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1788

"I would not hear / Aught else disturb the silent reign of death, / Save the dull ticking of a lazy clock. / That calls me home, and leads the pious soul / Through mazes of reflection, till she feels / For whom and why she lives"

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)

Date: January 1, 1779

"There [to Heaven's Regions] when the soul, in search of purer day, / Loos'd from mortality's impris'ning clay / Shall swifter than the forked lightning dart."

— Anstey, Christopher (1724-1805)

Date: Tuesday, May 15, 1750

"The soul cannot long be held in prison, but will fly away, and leave a lifeless body to human malice."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1781

"But now, farewell, ye flow'ry Cells, / Where bright Imagination dwells, / Round whom in Circles ever gay / The young Ideas love to play"

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1760-7

The gifts and endowments of wit and judgment may "be poured down warm as each of us could bear it,--scum and sediment an' all; (for I would not have a drop lost) into these veral receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles, dormitories, refectories, and spare places of our brains,--in such sort, that...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)