Date: 1739

"The darkling soul scarce feels a glimm'ring ray, /Shrouded in sense from her immortal day"

— Nugent, Robert [or Craggs] (1702-1788)

Date: 1739

"But as the moon reflecting borrow'd day, /Sheds on our shadow'd world a feeble ray: /Some scatter'd beams of Reason law contains, /While Order's rule must be enforc'd by pains"

— Nugent, Robert [or Craggs] (1702-1788)

Date: 1739

"For, O Gustavus, / My Soul is dark, disconsolate and dark; / Sick to the World, and hateful to myself, / I have no Country now."

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1742

"Where heav'nly Reason with her temperate Light, / Teaches th'unbiass'd Mind to judge aright / There Property secure enjoys her own; / There Conscience sits untroubl'd on her Throne"

— Boyse, Samuel (1708-1749)

Date: 1749

"His clouded Soul now darts no dazling Ray, / And faintly warms the animated Clay: / Not Rome's sad Ruins such Impressions leave, / As Reason bury'd in the Body's Grave:"

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1753

One may "stoop, with Locke, the Gleams of Thought to scan, / The Infant's dawning Ray, the Noon of Man"

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1756

"But the Truth is, this unnatural Power corrupts both the Heart, and the Understanding. And to prevent the least Hope of Amendment, a King is ever surrounded by a Crowd of infamous Flatterers, who find their Account in keeping him from the least Light of Reason, till all Ideas of Rectitude and Ju...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1756

"But the Passions which prop these Opinions are withdrawn one after another, and the cool Light of Reason at the Setting of our Life shews us what a false Splendor played upon these Objects during our more sanguine Seasons."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1756, 1766

"This is the excellent law of reason or nature. There is a light sufficient in every human breast, to conduct the soul to perfect day, if men will follow it right onwards"

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

"Every ray of reason participates of the majesty of that Being to whom it belongs, and whose attribute it is"

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)