Date: 1777
"There is a certain kind of trifling, in which a mind not much at ease can sometimes indulge itself. One feels an escape, as it were, from the heart, and is fain to take up with lighter company. It is like the theft of a truant boy, who goes to play for a few minutes while his master is asleep, a...
preview | full record— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)
Date: 1777
"Somebody, I think, has compared them to small pieces of coin, which, though of less value than the large, are more current amongst men; but the parallel fails in one respect: a thousand of those livres do not constitute a louis; and I have known many characters possessed of all tha...
preview | full record— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)
Date: 1777
"[H]er spirits droop more than her body; she is thoughtful and melancholy when she thinks she is not observed, and, what pleases me worse, affects to appear otherwise, when she is"
preview | full record— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)
Date: 1777
Attempts at gaiety may look like "a conquest over the natural pensiveness of [the] mind"
preview | full record— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)
Date: 1777
"His youth has been enlightened by letters, and informed by travel; but what is still more valuable, his mind has been early impressed with the principles of manly virtue."
preview | full record— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)
Date: 1777
"[T]here is, methinks, a languor in your last letter--or is it but the livery of my own imagination, which the objects around me are constrained to wear?"
preview | full record— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)
Date: 1777
"He appeared to feel in his situation that dependence I mentioned; in mean souls, this produces servility; in liberal minds, it is the nurse of honourable pride."
preview | full record— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)
Date: 1783, 1785, 1789
"Indeed, the real seat of all superiority, even of manners, must be placed in the mind: dignified sentiments, superior courage, accompanied with genuine and universal courtesy, are always necessary to constitute the real gentleman; and where these are wanting, it is the greatest absurdity to thin...
preview | full record— Day, Thomas (1748-1789)
Date: w. 1782, 1786, 1816
"He consoled himself, however, for this intruding and unwelcome perception of his littleness, with the thought of being great in the eyes of others; and flattered himself that the light of his mind would extend beyond the reach of his sight, and extort from the stars the decrees of his destiny."
preview | full record— Beckford, William (1760-1844)
Date: w. 1782, 1786, 1816
"'Drink then this draught,' said the stranger, as he presented to him a phial of a red and yellow mixture: 'and, to satiate the thirst of thy soul, as well as of thy body, know, that I am an Indian; but, from a region of India, which is wholly unknown.'"
preview | full record— Beckford, William (1760-1844)