Date: 1729
"Oh, let not the soft, penetrating plague / Creep on the freeborn mind! and working there, / With the sharp tooth of many a new-form'd want, / Endless, and idle all, eat out the heart / Of liberty; the high conception blast; / The noble sentiment, the impatient scorn / Of base subjection, and the...
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: May 6, 1736
"These first Characters therefore ought to be deeply and beautifully struck, and the Learning they express should be of great Price. And this, if timely Care be taken, may be done with ease because the Mind is then soft and tender: and because Truth and Right are by the nature of Things, as pleas...
preview | full record— Denne, John (1693-1767)
Date: 1746
"So books, not well digested, blot the mind, / But make us - in search of wisdom - blind"
preview | full record— Ruffhead, James
Date: 1782
One may have a mind "Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind, / But now and then perhaps a feeble ray /Of distant wisdom shoots across his way."
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)