Date: 1793

"the selfish are not governed solely by sensual gratification or the love of gain, but that the desire of eminence and distinction is in different degrees an universal passion"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"Reason is the only legislator, and her decrees are irrevocable and uniform."

— 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)

Date: 1794

"My own mind is my own church."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors [that bolt into the mind of their own accord] with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth entertaining; and it is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"Every person of learning is finally his own teacher; the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are never so lasting as when they begin by conception."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"As to the learning that any person gains from school education, it serves only, like a small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for himself afterwards."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

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

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable Creation, yet it is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic account of the creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart of that story, the death...

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"When fibrous contractions succeed other fibrous contractions, the connection is termed 'association'; when fibrous contractions succeed sensorial motions, the connection is termed 'cassation'; when fibrous and sensorial motions reciprocally introduce each other in progressive trains or tribes, i...

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)