Date: 1755
"My squire, however, will intimate how I am; while I content myself with assuring you, that I will, to all eternity, preserve engraven upon the tablets of my memory, the benevolence you this day vouchsafed unto me, that I may be grateful for the favour, as long as life shall remain."
preview | full record— Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547-1616); Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771)
Date: 1761
"The image of Eloisa, never to be erased from my mind, shall be my shield, and render my soul invulnerable."
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)
Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English
"But I had found it: I did find and know an exalted mind, which raised me beyond myself, and made me all that I am capable of being. All the powers of my soul were extended, and the deep sentiment which nature engraved on my heart, was unfolded."
preview | full record— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)