Date: 1788

"But in general, I know of no method of getting money, not even that of robbing for it upon the highway, which has so direct a tendency to efface the moral sense, to rob the heart of every gentle and humane disposition, and to harden it, like steel, against all impressions of sensibility."

— Newton, John (1725-1807)

Date: 1791, 1800

"Then from the iron tablet of my mind, / Will I efface my catalogue of wrongs."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: 1793

"She said she foresaw that, if his heart was not steel and adamant, he would be ruined; that she had read his mind thoroughly, and plainly saw that the only vice he had in the world was want of deceit."

— Dibdin, Charles (bap. 1745, d. 1814)

Date: 1805

Pity first stamp'd your story in my breast, and the impression is engrav'd for ever"

— Reynolds, Frederick (1764-1841)

Date: 1817

"Not until my dream became / Like a child's legend on the tideless sand. / Which the first foam erases half, and half / Leaves legible"

— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)