Date: 1770

"A metaphysician, exploring the recesses of the human heart, hath just such a chance for finding the truth, as a man with microscopic eyes would have, for, finding the road."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: September, 1770

"This double feeling is of various kinds and various degrees; some minds receiving a colour from the objects around them, like the effects of the sun beams playing thro' a prism; and others, like the cameleon, having no colours of their own, take just the colours of what chances to be nearest them."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1771

"Grace, that with tenderness and sense combin'd / To form that harmony of soul and face, / Where beauty shines the mirror of the mind."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1771

What "absurd judgment we form, in viewing objects through the falsifying medium of prejudice and passion"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1771

"The optics of some minds are in so unlucky a perspective, as to throw a certain shade on every picture that is presented to them; while those of others (of which number was Harley) like the mirrors of the ladies, have a wonderful effect in bettering their complexions"

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1772-1781

What availed the songs of a "mighty mind, / With inward light irradiate, mirror-like / Receiv'd, and to mankind with ray reflex / The sov'reign Planter's primal work display'd?"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1772

"The Eye, that Orb of Light, which shews / The Features of the Mind, / Distinct, as faithful Mirrours yield / The Forms of human Kind."

— Whyte, Samuel (1733-1811)

Date: 1772

"In Fancy's Mirror, we but darkling see, / What must, hereafter, our Advantage be."

— Whyte, Samuel (1733-1811)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"What is the whole world to our hearts without love? It is the optic machine of the Savoyards without light." [More literal translation: "Wilhelm, what would the world mean to our hearts without love! What is a magic lantern without its lamp!"]

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"Oh! that I could express, that I could describe, these great conceptions, with the same warmth, with the same energy, that they are impressed on my soul!" [Literal translation: "Oh could you only express, could you the breathe forth upon this paper all that lives so warm and full, that it might ...

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)