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."
preview | full record— Paley, William (1743-1805)
Date: 1786
"You confound their abilities by the severity of their servitude: for as a spark of fire, if crushed by too great a weight of incumbent fuel, cannot be blown into a flame, but suddenly expires, so the human mind, if depressed by rigorous servitude, cannot be excited to a display of those facultie...
preview | full record— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)
Date: 1786
"If at this recital his indignation should arise, let him consider it as the genuine production of nature; that she recoiled at the horrid thought, and that she applied instantly a torch to his breast to kindle his resentment."
preview | full record— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)
Date: December 11, 1786; 1787
"Because these Arts, in their highest province, are not addressed to the gross senses, but to the desires of the mind, to that spark of divinity which we have within, impatient of being circumscribed and pent up by the world which is about us."
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: 1790
"Our minds, when young, are like tinder--they will catch any spark, whether emitted by Virtue or by Vice; and it is to be lamented, that the latter emits them more than the former."
preview | full record— Trusler, John (1735-1820)
Date: December 1790
"But it is not that enthusiastic flame which in Greece and Rome consumed every sordid passion: no, self is the focus; and the disparting rays rise not above our foggy atmosphere."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1793
"Law may be supposed to have been constructed in the tranquil serenity of the soul, a suitable monitor to check the inflamed mind with which the recent memory of ills might induce us to proceed to the exercise of coercion"
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)
Date: 1793
"Their mind is not always prepared to pour forth its burning ideas; it is kindled by the flame which it strikes from the collision of the works of great writers."
preview | full record— Disraeli, Isaac (1766-1848)
Date: 1798
"A thousand images of this sort were present to her burning imagination."
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)