Date: 1737
"You see 'tis with weak heads as with weak stomachs, they immediately throw out what they received last; and what they read floats upon the surface of their mind, like oil upon water, without incorporating."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: September 17, 1739
"There are different ways of examining the Mind as well as the Body. One may consider it either as an Anatomist or as a Painter; either to discover its most secret Springs & Principles or to describe the Grace & Beauty of its Actions."
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Date: 1740
"Your Soul shall grow up as young Plants, and your Daughters be as the polished Corners of the Temple; and to sum up all Blessings in one,--Then shall the LORD be your GOD."
preview | full record— Whitefield, George (1714-1770)
Date: March 25, 1758
"Non, mon digne ami; ce n’est point sur quelques feuilles éparses qu’il faut aller chercher la loi de Dieu, mais dans le coeur de l’homme, où sa main daigna l’écrire. [It is not at all in a few sparse pages that we must seek for God's law, but in the human heart, where His hand deigned to write."
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)
Date: w. 1757-1758, 1861
"Nous ne voyons ni l'âme d'autrui, parce qu'elle se cache, ni la notre, parce que nous n'avons point de miroir intellectuel [We do not see the soul of others, because it hides itself, nor our own, because we have no intellectual mirror]."
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)
Date: 1760
"Oh, Sterne! thou art scabby, and such is the leprosy of thy mind that it is not to be cured like the leprosy of the body, by dipping nine times in the river Jordan."
preview | full record— Whitefield, George (1714-1770)
Date: September 3, 1766
"Donner le change à nos passions par le goût des belles connaissances, c'est enchaîner les amours avec des liens de fleurs."
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)
Date: 1773
Meek-eyed Toleration may, gentle as a dove, sit "enthroned upon the benevolent hearts of mannkind"
preview | full record— Crawford, Charles (b. 1752)
Date: 1774
"Let me, therfore, most earnestly recommend to you, to hoard up, while you can, a great stock of knowledge; for though, during the dissipation of your youth, you may not have occasion to spend much of it; yet, you may depend upon it, that a time will come, when you will want it to maintain you. P...
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Date: 1774
"In this journey, the understanding is the 'voiture' that must carry you through; and in proportion as that is stronger or weaker, more or less in repair, your journey will be better or worse; though at best you will now and then find some bad roads, and some bad inns."
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)