Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"Distance, my dear friend, is like futurity; a darkness is placed before us, and the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as distant objects are to our sight."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"What consolation she is capable of giving to the sick, I have myself experienced, for my heart is much diseased."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1780

"The face is certainly the best index of the mind, and the passions as forcibly expressed by the features as by the words and gesture of the performer."

— Francklin, Thomas (1721–1784); Lucian (b.c. 125, d. after 180)

Date: 1780

"His discourse had not slightly affected me, or grazed the skin alone, but left a deep and mortal wound, and pierced, as it were, to my inmost soul."

— Francklin, Thomas (1721–1784); Lucian (b.c. 125, d. after 180)

Date: 1780

"The mind, in my opinion, of every well-disposed man, is like a soft mark, or butt; many are the archers in this life, with their quivers full of speeches of every kind; but few amongst them aim aright: some stretch the cord too tight, and the arrow, sent forth with more force than is necessary, ...

— Francklin, Thomas (1721–1784); Lucian (b.c. 125, d. after 180)

Date: 1780

"But the skilful marksman, like our philosopher, examines first the mark he is to shoot at, with all possible diligence and care, to see whether it be soft or hard, for some are impenetrable; then dipping his arrow, not in poison, like the Scythians, nor in opium, like the Curetes, but in a kind ...

— Francklin, Thomas (1721–1784); Lucian (b.c. 125, d. after 180)

Date: 1788-89

The soul is "Like a man between sleeping and waking, her visions are turbid and confused, and the phantoms of a material night, continually glide before her drowsy eye."

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788-89

"But on the latter system [Plato's], the soul is the connecting medium of an intelligible and sensible nature, the bright repository of all middle forms, and the vigilant eye of all cogitative reasons"

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788-89

"At first, indeed, before she is excited by science, she is oppressed with lethargy, and clouded with oblivion; but in proportion as learning and enquiry stimulate her dormant powers, she wakens from the dreams of ignorance, and opens her eye to the irradiations of wisdom"

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788-89

"The former [Platonic philosophy] fills the soul with intelligible light, breaks her lethargic fetters, and elevates her to the principle of things; the latter [Lockean philosophy] clouds the intellectual eye of the soul, by increasing her oblivion, strengthens her corporeal bands, and hurries he...

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)