Date: 1794

"Whereas a due exercise of the faculties of the mind strengthens and improves those faculties, whether of imagination or recollection; as the exercise of our limbs in dancing or fencing increases the strength and agility of the muscles thus employed."

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1794

"[T]he thing in which my imagination revelled the most freely, was the analysis of the private and internal operations of the mind, employing my metaphysical dissecting knife in tracing and laying bare the involutions of motive, and recording the gradually accumulating impulses."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1796

"Thus Books are intellectual Aliment drest / For every appetite of every guest."

— Bishop, Samuel (1731-1795)

Date: 1796

"Or let two words, in my mind's eye, / Unite more close, than You, and I."

— Bishop, Samuel (1731-1795)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"My personal freedom had been somewhat impaired by the House of Commons and the Board of Trade; but I was now delivered from the chain of duty and dependence, from the hopes and fears of political adventure: my sober mind was no longer intoxicated by the fumes of party, and I rejoiced in my escap...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"By many, conversation is esteemed as a theatre or a school: but, after the morning has been occupied by the labours of the library, I wish to unbend rather than to exercise my mind; and in the interval between tea and supper I am far from disdaining the innocent amusement of a game at cards."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1796

"Aided by her youth and healthy constitution, she shook off the malady which her mother's death had occasioned; but it was not so easy to remove the disease of her mind."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"With affright did he bend his mind's eye on the space beyond the grave; nor could hide from himself how justly he ought to dread Heaven's vengeance."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"The eye of the mind is dazzled and vanquished."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1796

"An ancient writer, Plutarch, I think it is, quotes some verses on the eloquence of Pericles, who is called "the only orator that left stings in the minds of his hearers." Like his, the eloquence of the declaration, not contradicting, but enforcing sentiments of the truest humanity, has left stin...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)