Date: 1785

"Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1787

"But his imagination [Ignatius Sancho's] is wild and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1791, 1794

"I foolishly thought, some few years since, that every sense of joy was buried in the graves of my dear partner and my son; but my Lucy, by her filial affection, soothed my soul to peace, and this dear Charlotte has twined herself round my heart, and opened such new scenes of delight to my view, ...

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1791, 1794

"My daily employment is to think of you and weep, to pray for your happiness and deplore my own folly: my nights are scarce more happy, for if by chance I close my weary eyes, and hope some small forgetfulness of sorrow, some little time to pass in sweet oblivion, fancy, still waking, wafts me ho...

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1791, 1794

"Such were the dreadful images that haunted her distracted mind, and nature was sinking fast under the dreadful malady which medicine had no power to remove."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1799

"My heart began now, for the first time, to droop"

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

"Surely some insanity has fastened on my understanding"

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

Dreams haunt "undisciplined and unenlightened" imaginations

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

"It seemed as if I were walking in the dark and might rush into snares or drop into pits before I was aware of my danger"

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

"I cannot well account for the revolution in my mind."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)