Date: 1748

"Cæsar, Pompey, and Alexander the Great are continually in his mouth; and as he reads a good deal without any judgment to digest it, his ideas are confused, and his harrangues as unintelligible as infinite."

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1751

"In this corps he remained three years, during which, he had no opportunity of seeing actual service, except at the affair of Glensheel; and this life of insipid quiet, must have hung heavy upon a youth of M---'s active disposition, had not he found exercise for the mind, in'reading books of amus...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: January 1, 1760 - January 1, 1762; 1762

"[B]ut Tom Clarke, who seemed to have cast the eyes of affection upon the landlady's eldest daughter, Dolly, objected to their proceeding farther without rest and refreshment, as they had already travelled fifty miles since morning; and he was sure his uncle must be fatigued both in mind and body...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1773

"Besides these, there were certain evenings appropriated to exercises of the mind."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1773

"The punctilio's indeed on which he depends, for his own peace, and the peace of society, are so ridiculous in the eye of reason, that it is not a little surprising, how so many millions of reasonable beings should have sanctified them with their mutual consent and acquiescence; that they should ...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"I mention not the graces of her form; yet they are such as would attract the admiration of those, by whom the beauties of her mind might not be understood. In one as well as the other, there is a remarkable conjunction of tenderness with dignity; but her beauty is of that sort, on which we cann...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"The consciousness of what I mean by this letter to reveal, hangs like guilt upon my mind; therefore it is that I have so long delayed writing."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"That they are commonly vanquished by an effort to vanquish them; and that the sinking under their pressure, is one of those diseases of the mind, which, like certain diseases of the body, the exercise of its better faculties will very soon remove."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"He felt the assiduity of my friendship, and I saw him grateful for its exertion; yet would the idea of being obliged, often rankle in his mind."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"[H]er spirits droop more than her body; she is thoughtful and melancholy when she thinks she is not observed, and, what pleases me worse, affects to appear otherwise, when she is"

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)