Date: 1785

"[W]hen the mind is absent, and the thoughts are wandering to something else than what is passing in the place in which we are, we are often miserable"

— Paley, William (1743-1805)

Date: 1785

"If different religions be professed in the same country, and the minds of men remain unfettered and unawed by intimidations of law, that religion which is founded in maxims of reason and credibility, will gradually gain over the other to it."

— Paley, William (1743-1805)

Date: 1785

"It were to be wished, therefore, that every part of a liturgy were personally applicable to every individual in the congregation; and that nothing were introduced to interrupt the passion, or damp the flame, which it is not easy to rekindle."

— Paley, William (1743-1805)

Date: 1785

"To holy Solitude I flew, / And bade the Muse her sympathy prepare! / There closeted with Thought, / The brain its shapeless travail wrought!"

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

Date: 1785

"The analogy between memory and a repository, and between remembering and retaining, is obvious and is to be found in all languages."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: May 18, 1782, 1785

"Why is the countenance made a mask for the soul, when it should be a mirror, in which every eye might behold the true features of the mind, in the deformity of vice, or the loveliness of virtue!"

— Pilon, Frederick (1750-1788)

Date: 1785

Silence is the "Refuge of tender hearts must fear mixing "With the mad multitude, where passions fell, / And strangers to their bosom, enter wild, / Like Sin and Death in Paradise, to jar / On the soft music of according souls!"

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

Date: May 18, 1782, 1785

"Oh, that every heart was like mine, a stranger to dissimulation!"

— Pilon, Frederick (1750-1788)

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)