Date: 1789

Books are "Food chiefly for the mind"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1789

"'Is there a Man, who, wealthy to no end, / 'Ne'er knew the common wish to be a Friend, / 'Whose callous Heart's to all Compassion steel'd?"

— Combe, William (1742 -1823)

Date: 1789

"While in Fancy's ear / As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell, / The Enthusiast of the Lyre, who wander'd here, / Seems yet to strike his visionary shell, / Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear / Or wake wild frenzy--from her hideous cell!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1789

"Thou spectre of terrific mien, / Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye, / In whose fierce train each form is sees / That drives sick Reason to insanity!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1790

"[P]ains and diseases of the mind are only cured by Forgetfulness;--Reason but skins the wound, which is perpetually liable to fester again"

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1790

"Still through the deep'ning gloom of bow'ry shades / To Fancy's eye fantastic forms appear"

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

Date: 1790

"Not only in the eye of the law, but in the eye of reason, 'the will' is ever 'taken for the deed', and 'they who cannot as they will, must will as they may'; that is, must do as they can."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: 1790

"Love is an idle term; it is merely the fever of the mind, and, if encouraged, is apt to rage; but, if discouraged, may be overcome."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: December 1790

"The man has been changed into an artificial monster by the station in which he was born, and the consequent homage that benumbed his faculties like the torpedo’s touch."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"The mewing babe in swaddling-clothes, who is treated like a superior being, may perchance become a gentleman; but nature must have given him uncommon faculties if, when pleasure hangs on every bough, he has sufficient fortitude either to exercise his mind or body in order to acquire personal mer...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)