Date: 1785

"Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1787

"But his imagination [Ignatius Sancho's] is wild and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1789, 1791, 1799

"Oft tho' thy genius, Darwin! amply fraught / With native wealth, explore new worlds of mind; / Whence the bright ores of drossless wisdom brought, / Stampt by the Muse's hand, enrich mankind"

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: February 1791

"Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far as a writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind often appears under a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more than he has expressed."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1792

"Let all their thoughts be unconfined, / And clap your padlock on their mind."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1793

"All kings have possessed such a portion of luxury and ease, have been so far surrounded with servility and falshood, and to such a degree exempt from personal responsibility, as to destroy the natural and wholesome complexion of the human mind."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"In this unequal contest, alarm and apprehension will perpetually haunt the minds of those who exercise usurped power."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"Mind is the creature of sensation; we have no other inlet of knowledge."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"Mind will never arrive at the true tone of energy, till we feel that moral liberty and discretion are mere creatures of the imagination"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"We must sharpen our intellectual weapons; add to the stock of our knowledge; be pervaded with a sense of the magnitude of our cause; and perpetually increase that calm presence of mind and self possession which must enable us to do justice to our principles."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)