Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of Art, he is possessed of that-presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from every school; selects both from what is great, and what is little; brings home knowledge from the East and from the West; making the universe tributary towards fu...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1774

"Opinion, reflecting the Stoick within himself, surrounds his heart with ice, prevents it from palpitating with joy amidst pleasures, from being moved to pity at the hearing of doleful cries, from shaking for fear among dangers; it concenters all his passions in pride, and, confirming him in his ...

— Marat, Jean-Paul (1743-1793)

Date: 1774

"A parcel of warm hearts and inexperienced heads, heated by convivial mirth, and possibly a little too much wine, vow, and really mean at the time, eternal friendships to each other, and indiscreetly pour out their whole souls in common, and without the least reserve."

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1775

Love and fear may dry up "soft springs of pity" in the heart and freeze them

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1775

Lonely anguish may melt the heart

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1775

"My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; / And in my breast the imperfect joys expire."

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1775

Faded ideas float in the fancy like half-forgotten dreams

— Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816)

Date: 1775

One may be so distressed as to be given "hydrostatics"

— Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816)

Date: 1775

"But, O, my brother! if thou hast a heart / That is not steel'd with stoic apathy / Against the magic of all-conqu'ring love, / Beware of beauty's pow'r; for she has charms / Wou'd melt the frozen breast of hoary age, / Or draw the lonely hermit from his cell / To gaze upon her."

— Francklin, Thomas (1721-1784)

Date: 1776-1789

"The influence of a polite age and the labour of an attentive education had never been able to infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning"

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)