Date: 1745

"The Duties of his Day / Were all discharg'd, and gratefully enjoy'd / It's noblest Blessings; calm, as Evening Skies, / Was his pure Mind, and lighted up with Hopes / That open Heaven; when, for his last long Sleep / Timely prepar'd, a Lassitude of Life, / A pleasing Weariness of mortal Joy, / F...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1746

"Come with those downcast Eyes, sedate and sweet, / Those Looks demure, that deeply pierce the Soul; / Where, with the Light of thoughtful Reason mix'd, / Shines lively Fancy and the feeling Heart."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1746

"These are the sacred feelings of thy heart, / Thy heart inform'd by reason's purer ray, / O Lyttelton, the friend!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1746

"Social friends, / Attuned to happy unison of soul; / To whose exalting eye a fairer world, / Of which the vulgar never had a glimpse, / Displays its charms; whose minds are richly fraught / With philosophic stores, superior light; / And in whose breast, enthusiastic, burns / Virtue, the sons of ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1750

"A mind in wisdom old, in lenience young, / From fervent truth where every virtue sprung; / Where all was real, modest, plain, sincere; / Worth above show, and goodness unsevere: / View'd round and round, as lucid diamonds throw / Still as you turn them a revolving glow, / So did his mind reflect...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1793

In a just society "understanding would convert into a real power, no longer an ignis fatuus, shining and expiring by turns, and leading us into sloughs of sophistry, false science and specious mistake"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"Mind will frequently burst forth, but its appearance will be like the corruscations of the meteor, not like the mild illumination of the sun"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"Their result will be thick darkness of the mind, timidity, servility, hypocrisy."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1794

"It [Christianity] has put the whole orbit of reason into shade."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)