Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750
"The philosophers having found an easy victory over those desires which we produce in ourselves, and which terminate in some imaginary state of happiness unknown and unattainable, proceeded to make further inroads upon the heart, and attacked at last our senses and our instincts."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750
"Yet it cannot be with justice denied, that these men have been very useful monitors, and have left many proofs of strong reason, deep penetration, and accurate attention to the affairs of life, which it is now our business to separate from the foam of a boiling imagination, and to apply judiciou...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Tuesday, November 20, 1750
"Yet, if we consider the conduct of those sententious philosophers, it will often be found, that they repeat these aphorisms, merely because they have somewhere heard them, because they have nothing else to say, or because they think veneration gained by such appearances of wisdom, but that no id...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Tuesday, November 20, 1750
"Of this kind is the well known and well attested position, 'that life is short,' which may be heard among mankind by an attentive auditor, many times a day, but which never yet within my reach of observation left any impression upon the mind."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1751
"He stood; content to bow to Custom's Throne, / So Reason mote not blush his sovran Rule to own."
preview | full record— West, Gilbert (1703-1756)
Date: 1751
"And fettering on her Throne th' immortal Mind, / The Guidance of her Realm to Passions wild resign'd."
preview | full record— West, Gilbert (1703-1756)
Date: 1751
Religion shall "Shall purge their Minds from all impure Allays / Of sordid Selfishness and brutal Sense,"
preview | full record— West, Gilbert (1703-1756)
Date: June 1751, 1752
"Thou [Eagle] servant of almighty JOVE, / Who, free and swift as thought, could'st rove / To the bleak north's extremest goal."
preview | full record— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Date: June 1751, 1752
"Thou [Eagle] type of wit and sense confin'd, / Cramp'd by the oppressors of the mind, / Who study downward on the ground."
preview | full record— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Date: 1751
"There are few among Mankind, who have not been often struck with Admiration at the Sight of that Variety of Colours and Magnificence of Form, which appear in an Evening Rainbow. The uninstructed in Philosophy consider that splendid Object, not as dependent on any other, but as being possessed of...
preview | full record— Brown, John (1715-1766)