Date: 1785

"To apply his great mind to minute particulars, is wrong: it is like taking an immense balance, such as is kept on quays for weighing cargoes of ships, to weigh a guinea. I knew I had neat little scales, which would do better; and that his attention to every thing which falls in his way, and his ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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)

Date: 1790

"We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1790

"If you were thus destitute of mental funds, the proceeding is in its natural course."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1791

"It can be accounted for only in this way; that by reading and meditation, and a very close inspection of life, he had accumulated a great fund of miscellaneous knowledge, which, by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was ever ready at his call, and which he had constantly accustomed himself to cloth...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1792

"The variety of nature is such, that new objects, and new combinations of them, are continually adding something to our fund, and inlarging our collection: while the same kind of object occurring frequently, is seen under various shapes; and makes us, if I may so speak, more learned in nature."

— Gilpin, William (1724-1804)

Date: 1794

"As to the learning that any person gains from school education, it serves only, like a small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for himself afterwards."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"As the bullion of which money is made, is the king's property, even before it is struck into coin, and before it visibly bears the royal image and superscription; so the unregenerate elect are God's own heritage, though they do not appear to be such, until the Holy Spirit has made them pass thro...

— Toplady, Augustus (1740-1771)