Date: 1785

"In cities foul example on most minds / Begets its likeness"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

The mind may hunger and be supplied

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

The mind may be pregnant "with some new theme"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"All constraint, / Except what wisdom lays on evil men, / Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes / Their progress in the road of science; blinds / The eyesight of discovery, and begets / In those that suffer it, a sordid mind."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Thy saints proclaim thee King; and in their hearts / Thy title is engraven with a pen / Dipt in the fountain of eternal love"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

The "eyesight of discovery" may be blinded by constraints

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

The infant mind may (and should) be fed with "proper fare"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

The growing mind needs better nourishment than "conjugated verbs" and "nouns declined"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1789

Books are "Food chiefly for the mind"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)