Date: 1756, 1766

"This is beyond the reach of our conception. Imagination cannot plumb her line so low."

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

"And as to gold's being so yielding and ductile by human art, it is to be observed, that in return it exerts a greater power on the human mind. "

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

Too much gold "gives the passions the commanding influence, and makes reason receive law from appetite."

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

"Whether the learned Dr. Edmund Law, and the great Dr. Sherlock bishop of London, be right, in asserting, the human soul sleeps like a bat or a swallow, in some cavern for a period, till the last trumpet awakens the hero of Voltaire and Henault, I mean Lewis XIV."

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

"The oblation of the Son, and the grace of the Father, have effects in religion, in changing and sanctifying, that reason is an utter stranger to."

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

"When death approaches, the amusements of sense immediately fail, and past transactions, in every circumstance of aggravation, crowd into the mind"

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

"They will give us for it the despicable legends of fictitious saints and false miracles;--a history of diseases cured instantly by relicks;--accounts of speaking images;--stories of travelling chapels;--wonders done by a Madona;--and the devil knows what he has crowded into their wretched...

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

"But then a question may be asked, What need have we of revelation, since reason can so fully instruct us, and its bonds alone are sufficient to hold us;--and in particular, what becomes of the principal part of revelation, called redemption?

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1760-7

"That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--tra...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy blow he had sustain'd from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckon'd upon in his mind, and register'd down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case Bobby should fail him."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)