Date: 1687, 1691
"I embrace thee, and cordially kiss thee, with the Lips of my Soul, if a man may so express himself."
preview | full record— Marana, Giovanni Paolo (1642-1693); Anonymous [William Bradshaw (fl. 1700) or Robert Midgley (1655?-1723)?]
Date: 1706, 1715 [1706-1721]
"hese thoughts which my fingers write, and which I express with incredible pleasure, and repeat again and again, speak from the bottom of my heart, and from the incurable wound which you have made in it; a wound which I bless a thousand times, notwithstanding the cruel torment I endure for your a...
preview | full record— Anonymous
Date: 1708
"Attend therefore with the Ears of thy Heart, and look sharply with the Eyes of thy Understanding, upon that which I shall shew thee; it may be thou may'st find so much in it, as may serve to lead thee into the right way."
preview | full record— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)
Date: 1708
"He made no doubt but that all those things which are contain'd in the Law of God [i.e. the Alcoran] concerning his Command, his Angels, Books and Messengers, the Day of Judgment, Paradise and Hell, were Resemblances of what Hai Ebn Yokdhan had seen; and the Eyes of his Understanding were open'd,...
preview | full record— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)
Date: 1712 [1706-1721]
"Sir, said the young man, for God’s sake do not stop me, let me go, I cannot without horror look upon that abominable barber; though he is born in a country where all the natives are whites, he resembles an Ethiopian; and when all is come to all, his soul is yet blacker and yet more horrible than...
preview | full record— Anonymous
Date: 1721, 1722
"Dissimulation, an art among us universally practised, and so necessary, is unknown here: they speak every thing, see every thing, and hear every thing: the heart, like the face, is visible."
preview | full record— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Date: 1692, 1724
"No, answer'd Mahomet, my Heart is not so easily wounded."
preview | full record— Aulnoy, Madame d' (Marie-Catherine) (1650/51-1705)
Date: 1761
"The design of nature is therefore evidently to strengthen the body, before the mind is exercised."
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)
Date: 1761
"You pleasantly asked me once, if souls were of a different sex. No, my dear, the soul is of no sex; but its affections make that distinction, and you begin to be too sensible of it."
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)
Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English
"Solitude in this terrestrial paradise is a medicine to my mind. The delight of spring touches my heart, and gives fresh vigour to my soul."
preview | full record— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)