Date: 1790
"Indeed in the gross and complicated mass of human passions and concerns, the primitive rights of men undergo such a variety of refractions and reflections, that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they continued in the simplicity of their original direction."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1791
"LORD TRIMBLESTOWN. 'True, Sir. As the ladies love to see themselves in a glass; so a man likes to see himself in his journal.' ... BOSWELL. "And as a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.'"
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1792
"The imagination becomes a camera obscura, only with this difference, that the camera represents objects as they really are; while the imagination, impressed with the most beautiful scenes, and chastened by rules of art, forms it's pictures, not only from the most admirable parts of nature; but i...
preview | full record— Gilpin, William (1724-1804)
Date: 1793
"How can you induce him to be dissatisfied with his present acquisitions, while every other person assures him that his accomplishments are admirable and his mind a mirror of sagacity?"
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)
Date: November 19, 1793
"But with the assistance of my motto, I hope at once to elucidate the observation, brighten the mirror of fancy, and solve the fluctuation of doubt."
preview | full record— Boyd, Hugh (1746-1794)
Date: 1798
"No neighbour mind serves as a mirror to reflect the generous confidence he felt within himself; and perhaps the man never yet existed, who could maintain his enthusiasm to its full vigour, in the midst of this kind of solitariness."
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)
Date: 1802
"He considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting properties of nature."
preview | full record— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)