Date: 1759

"That is, let not great Examples, or Authorities, browbeat thy Reason into too great a diffidence of thyself: Thyself so reverence as to prefer the native growth of thy own mind to the richest import from abroad; such borrowed riches make us poor."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1762

"An idle mind, like fallow ground, is the soil for every weed to grow in; in it vice strengthens, the seed of every vanity flourishes unmolested and luxuriant; discontent, malignity, ill humour, spread far and wide, and the mind becomes a chaos, which it is beyond human power to call into order a...

— Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720-1795)

Date: 1762

"Reflect, before the fatal Ax / My threatned Doom has wrought: / Nor sacrifice to sensual Taste / The nobler Growth of Thought."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1764

"Like such a garden, when the human soul, / Uncultured, wild, impatient of control, / Brings forth those passions of luxuriant race, /Which spread, and stifle every herb of grace

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1764

Virtue may wither on the bed she was born until Philosophy steps in and "clears the encumbered land" and "roots up every weed"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1764

"And by the way, according to the all-wise appointment of Providence, it is the same with the human mind, as it is with the earth; for education and good agriculture make the like improvements upon either."

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1765 [1764]

"The friar, who knew nothing of the youth but what he had learnt occasionally from the princess, ignorant of what became of him, and not sufficiently reflecting on the impetuosity of Manfred's temper, conceived that it might not be amiss to sow the seeds of jealousy in his mind."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)

Date: 1765

"Reason in the bosom pours, / Its growth improves, its fruit matures, / Each counsel of the human brain / Weighs in his scale, and stamps it vain?"

— Merrick, James (1720-1769)

Date: 1765

"That fruit thy covenant may yield, / Which is upon my forehead seal'd, / And on my heart ingraft."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1765

"Thro' rooted vice my spirits fail, / Which o'er my heart an empire wins, / O let thy mercy countervail / To cover all our sins."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)