Date: 1785
"I was delighted with this flash bursting from the cloud which hung upon his mind, closed my letter directly, and joined the company."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1785
"At a great school there is all the splendour and illumination of many minds; the radiance of all is concentrated in each, or at least reflected upon each."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1788-89
"At first, indeed, before she is excited by science, she is oppressed with lethargy, and clouded with oblivion; but in proportion as learning and enquiry stimulate her dormant powers, she wakens from the dreams of ignorance, and opens her eye to the irradiations of wisdom"
preview | full record— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)
Date: 1788-89
"The former [Platonic philosophy] fills the soul with intelligible light, breaks her lethargic fetters, and elevates her to the principle of things; the latter [Lockean philosophy] clouds the intellectual eye of the soul, by increasing her oblivion, strengthens her corporeal bands, and hurries he...
preview | full record— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)
Date: February 3, 1788
"The spirit of the Gospel 'proclaims liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound:' but these men rivet the chains of slavery; 'the iron enters into the Negro's soul,' while while his mind is left in all the darkness of ignorance, without one ray of those comforts ...
preview | full record— Agutter, William (1758-835)
Date: December 10, 1788; 1789
"Sometimes indeed it happens, that he may be able to mark the time, when from the sight of a picture, a passage in an author, or a hint in conversation, he has received, as it were, some new and guiding light, something like inspiration, by which his mind has been expanded, and is morally sure th...
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: 1789
"In this deep consternation the Lord was pleased to break in upon my soul with his bright beams of heavenly light; and in an instant as it were, removing the veil, and letting light into a dark place, I saw clearly with the eye of faith the crucified Saviour bleeding on the cross on mount Calvary."
preview | full record— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)
Date: 1789
"In no state of society can a practice, involving in it circumstances of such atrocious and enormous guilt, be considered as defensible by any person whose understanding is not darkened by the turpitude of his heart; in whom not only the feelings of the moral sense are extinguished, but, in this ...
preview | full record— Belsham, William (1752-1827)