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Date: 1788

"Within the heart which love illumes, / And blesses with his sacred rays, / If meaner passion e'er presumes, / It fades before the hallow'd blaze."

— Cobb, James (1756-1818)

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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"

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

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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...

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

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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 ...

— Agutter, William (1758-835)

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Date: 1788

"Thou Christian emperor in whose generous breast / The light of pure devotion shone impress'd, / That sacred light descending from above, / An emanation of coelestial love; / With speed of light'ning spread the lambent ray, / Till realms of darkness kindled into day; / From God himself the spark ...

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

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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...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

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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."

— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)

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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 ...

— Belsham, William (1752-1827)

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Date: 1790

"All the splendour of the highest prosperity can never enlighten the gloom with which so dreadful an idea must necessarily over-shadow the imagination; nor, in a wise and virtuous man, can all the sorrow of the most afflicting adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs from the habit...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

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Date: 1790

"Men are caught indeed by the effusions of a brilliant fancy and bright imagination; but its refulgence and flashes, like the coruscations of the diamond, serve only to sparkle in the eye of the beholder, and to dazzle his sight, without further use or advantage to any one: whereas practical good...

— Moore, Charles (fl. 1785-90)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.