Date: 1794

"My own mind is my own church."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"Every person of learning is finally his own teacher; the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are never so lasting as when they begin by conception."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1795

"My brain was a broker's shop; the little good furniture it contained all hid by lumber!"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1796, 1806

"Ambition!--not that emulative zeal Which wings the tow'ring souls of godlike men! / But bold, oppressive, self-created pow'r, / That, trampling o'er the barrier of the laws, / And scattering wide the tender shoots of pity, / Strikes at the root of reason, and confines / Nature itself in bondage!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1797

""But returning passion, like a wave that has recoiled from the shore, afterwards came with recollected energy, and swept from her feeble mind the barriers which reason and conscience had begun to rear."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1798

"I believe it may be admitted as a maxim, that no person of a well furnished mind, that has shaken off the implicit subjection of youth, and is not the zealous partizan of a sect, can bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of sermons and prayers."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1804

"Her Brain enlabyrinths the whole heaven of her bosom & loins / To put in act what her Heart wills"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: c. 1804-1811, 1818

"For every human heart has gates of brass & bars of adamant, / Which few dare unbar because dread Og & Anak guard the gates"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: c. 1804-1811, 1818

"Terrific! and each mortal brain is walld and moated round / Within"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: c. 1804-1811, 1818

Og & Anak watch in the brain which "is the Seat / Of Satan in its Webs; for in brain and heart and loins / Gates open behind Satans Seat to the City of Golgonooza / Which is the spiritual fourfold London, in the loins of Albion"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)