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...

— 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."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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...

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1751

"Another Source of mutual Misapprehension on this Subject hath been 'the Introduction of metaphorical Expressions instead of proper ones.' Nothing is so common among the Writers on Morality, as 'the Harmony of Virtue'—'the Proportion of Virtue.'"

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1751

"If any Man hath found out a Kind of Motive which doth not affect himself, he hath made a deeper Investigation into the 'Springs, Weights, and Balances' of the human Heart, than I can pretend to."

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1751

"A Warfare of this Kind must indeed be a State of complete Misery, when all is Uproar within, and the distracted Heart set at Variance with itself."

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1751

"They [sense, imagination, and passion] are no more than the several Species of simple Colours laid, as it were, upon the Pallet; which, variously combined and associated by the Hand of an experienced Master, would indeed call forth every striking Resemblance, every changeful Feature of the Heart...

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1751

"Thus a lively Imagination and unperceived Self-Love, fetter the Heart in certain ideal Bonds of their own creating: Till at length some turbulent and furious Passion arising in its Strength, breaks these fantastic Shackles which Fancy had imposed, and leaps to its Prey like a Tyger chained by Co...

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: January 3, 1750-51, 1807

"He may confine their bodies; but the free soul will be out of his power, which only love and gratitude can bind."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: January 3, 1750-51, 1807

"It is the privilege of the good, to establish their empire in the hearts of their dependents; this is the triumph of my dear Mr. Richardson; and then indeed does his excellent heart exult, when he sees every one the happier and better for their connexion with him!"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)