Date: 1751, 1791

"Now take a Simile at Hand, / Compare the mental Soil to Land."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"The passions are a num'rous crowd, / Imperious, positive, and loud: / Curb these licentious sons of strife; / Hence chiefly rise the storms of life: / If they grow mutinous, and rave, / They are thy masters, thou their slave."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"Passions that flatter, or that slay, / Are beasts that fawn, or birds that prey."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"That Breast, where Honour builds his Throne, / That Breast, which Virtue calls her own."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751

"Whereas those darts, which fly from the perfections of the mind, penetrate into the soul, and fix a lasting empire there."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1751

"I proceeded therefore--That I loved Familiar-letter-writing, as I had more than once told her, above all the species of writing: It was writing from the heart (without the fetters prescribed by method or study) as the very word 'Cor-respondence' implied"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1751

"Nothing of body, when friend writes to friend; the mind impelling sovereignly the vassal-fingers."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: Saturday, December 21, 1751

"A careless glance upon a favourite author, or transient survey of the varieties of life, is sufficient to supply the first hint or seminal idea, which, enlarged by the gradual accretion of matter stored in the mind, is by the warmth of fancy easily expanded into flowers, and sometimes ripened in...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: September 7, 1751

"The mental disease of the present generation, is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 12, 1751

"There are many diseases both of the body and mind, which it is far easier to prevent than to cure, and therefore I hope you will think me employed in an office not useless either to learning or virtue, if I describe the symptoms of an intellectual malady, which, though at first it seizes only th...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)