Date: 1831

"In this sense a numerous school is, to a degree that can scarcely be adequately described, the slaughter-house of mind."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1805-6, published 1833-6

"Spirit often seems to have forgotten and lost itself, but inwardly opposed to itself, it is inwardly working ever forward (as when Hamlet says of the ghost of his father, 'Well said, old mole! canst work i' the ground so fast?') until grown strong in itself it bursts asunder the crust of earth w...

— Hegel, G. W. F. (1770-1831)

Date: August 31, 1837

"But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some preestablished harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact observed in insects, who lay up food befor...

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: w. 1821, 1840

"For Lucretius had limed the wings of his swift spirit in the dregs of the sensible world."

— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)

Date: w. 1821, 1840

"What were virtue, love, patriotism, friendship - what were the scenery of this beautiful universe which we inhabit; what were our consolations on this side of the grave - and what were our aspirations beyond it, if poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire from those eternal regions where th...

— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)

Date: 1850

"The relation discovered, must be something remote from all the common tracks and sheep-walks made in the mind."

— Smith, Sydney (1771-1845)

Date: 1851

"And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal—that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk."

— Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788-1860)

Date: 1854

"Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sport; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot one’s self."

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Date: 1854

"Patriotism is a maggot in their heads."

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Date: August 6 and 20, 1859

"The jaded cart-horse of the commonplace bourgeois mind falters of course in confusion in front of the ditch separating substance from appearance, and cause from effect; but one should not ride carthorses if one intends to go coursing over the very rough ground of abstract reasoning."

— Engels, Friedrich (1820-1895)