Date: 1774
"This, which I practiced for some years, not only improved and formed my style, but imprinted in my mind and memory the best thoughts of the best authors."
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Date: 1774
"I will study Demosthenes and Cicero, not to discover an old Athenian or Roman custom, nor to puzzle myself with the value of talents, mines, drachms, and sesterces, like the learned blockheads in us; but to observe their choice of words, their harmony of diction, their method, their distribution...
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Date: 1781
"When the outward object hath made its impression, and stamped the idea, the passive organ hath then done its part, and the rest is accomplished by the presiding mind."
preview | full record— Rotheram, John (1725–1789)
Date: 1781
"Let matter then be allowed to furnish the first materials; the enlightened mind, which by its operations upon these discovers truth, and pursues it through all its distant connections, must have powers as far superiour to that which gave the first impression, as PHIDIAS is superiour to the marble."
preview | full record— Rotheram, John (1725–1789)