Date: 1786

"'Tis thy pure spirit warms my Anna's mind. / Beams thro' the pensive softness of her form, / And holds its altar--on her spotless heart!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1788

"She knew none of the inhabitants of the vast city to which she was going: the mass of buildings appeared to her a huge body without an informing soul."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"I am a wretch! and she heaved a sigh that almost broke her heart, while the big tears rolled down her burning cheeks; but still her exercised mind, accustomed to think, began to observe its operation, though the barrier of reason was almost carried away, and all the faculties not restrained by h...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1789

"While in Fancy's ear / As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell, / The Enthusiast of the Lyre, who wander'd here, / Seems yet to strike his visionary shell, / Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear / Or wake wild frenzy--from her hideous cell!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1790, 1794

"How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain!"

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: December 1790

"To argue from experience, it should seem as if the human mind, averse to thought, could only be opened by necessity; for, when it can take opinions on trust, it gladly lets the spirit lie quiet in its gross tenement."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"Go hence, thou slave of impulse, look into the private recesses of thy heart, and take not a mote from thy brother’s eye, till thou hast removed the beam from thine own."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1791, 1806

"When from the festive bow'r / The frenzied Homicide retreats, / And, in his bosom's cell, / Essays each rising throb to quell;"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1791, 1806

"Yet in my bosom's ruby cell / The philosophic lore shall live!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)