Date: 1774
"A strong mind sees things in their true proportions; a weak one views them through a magnifying medium, which, like the microscope, makes an elephant of a flea: magnifies all little objects, but cannot receive great ones."
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Date: 1774
"A learned parson, rusting in his cell, at Oxford or Cambridge, will reason admirably well upon the nature of man; will profoundly analyze the head, the heart, the reason, the will, the passions, the senses, the sentiments, and all those subdivisions of we know not what; and yet, unfortunately, h...
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Date: 1775
"Of vulgar minds why nature shuns the praise, / And why to yours her every charm displays; / Whether the happy strokes of beauty shine / On fancy's mirror, or in HOGARTH's line; / Whether to habit, mode, or place confin'd, / Or fixt a general truth in every mind; / Discussions these will wing our...
preview | full record— Shepherd, Richard (1731/2-1809)
Date: 1781
"The Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirrour in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: w. October 27, 1777, printed 1788
"In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: w. 1780, 1792
"Blest be the tribute of those tears, that start / From Friendship's eye, the mirrors of the heart."
preview | full record— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838)
Date: April 20, 1796
"Oh! that superior mind is gone for ever! / --Yet still, thus ruin'd, like a broken mirror, / It gives a perfect image in each fragment!"
preview | full record— Lee, Sophia (bap. 1750, d. 1824)
Date: 1798
"So, mighty Burke! in thy sepulchral urn, / To fancy's view, the lamp of Truth shall burn"
preview | full record— Canning, George (1770-1827)