Date: 1783

"[W]hat Horace observes of words is equally true of thoughts ... every superfluity is lost, like water poured into a vessel already full."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart."

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

Date: 1784

"The minds of these, our fellow-creatures, that are now drowned in ignorance, being thus opened and improved, the pale of reason would be enlarged; Christianity would receive new strength; liberty new subjects."

— Ramsay, James (1733-1789)

Date: 1784

"Thy piercing thought / Unaided saw each movement of the mind, / As skilful artists view the small machine, / The secret springs and nice dependencies, / And to thy mimic scenes, by fancy wrought / To such a wond'rous shape, th'impassion'd breast / In floods of grief, or peals of laughter bow'd, ...

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1785

"The fluctuant mind, by various passions tost, / Now rides aloft, and now immerg'd, is lost"

— Perronet, Edward (1721-1792)

Date: 1785

"He [Johnson] said, he did not grudge Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the House of Commons, mere...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: w. 1782, 1786, 1816

"The falling waters filled his soul with dejection, and his tears trickled down the jasmines he had caught from Nouronihar, and placed in his inflamed bosom."

— Beckford, William (1760-1844)

Date: w. 1782, 1786, 1816

"Vathek, too much cast down to express the indignation excited by such a discourse, ordered the afrit to remove Carathis from his presence, and continued immersed in thoughts which his companions durst not disturb."

— Beckford, William (1760-1844)

Date: 1787

"Quick, you iron-souled scoundrels! Don't you know he is in distress?"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809); Shakespeare

Date: January 23, 1787, 1788

"Whelm'd with such violence of woe, / Would melt a heart of steel, / Which only those who love can know, / Who lose can only feel."

— Arley [Miles Peter Andrews (1742- 814)?]