Date: 1785

The "eyesight of discovery" may be blinded by constraints

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Rules for rendering the Mind a tabula rasa, on which the hand of Nature is to write by observation and experiments: and for expelling the prejudices, which have retarded the progress of the useful Sciences and Arts."

— Bruce, John (1745-1826)

Date: 1785

"I tread his deck, / Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes / Discover countries, with a kindred heart / Suffer his woes and share in his escapes, / While fancy, like the finger of a clock, / Runs the great circuit, and is still at home."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"He [Johnson] said, he did not grudge Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the House of Commons, mere...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"Heav'ns! of how cynnical a Nature / The school-taught Race of ALMA MATER! / Who, of cramp'd Mind and clouded Brain / Bind GENIUS in a Gothic Chain."

— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838)

Date: 1785

"While affection fond as fair, / Forms a chain of every hair, / A chain, which round the willing mind, / Sensibility shall bind."

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: December 8, 1785, 1786

"And I from my purpose will never depart, / To bind faster those bonds in which Love holds your heart."

— Cobb, James (1756-1818)

Date: 1785

"Behold the man a firmer bond requires, / For him the passion kindles all its fires."

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1785

"In later ages, Des Cartes was the first that pointed out the road we ought to take in those dark regions [of the mind]."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"Thus colour must be in something coloured; figure in something figured; thought can only be in something that thinks; wisdom and virtue cannot exist but in some being that is wise and virtuous."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)