Date: December 1790

"The exercise of our faculties is the great end, though not the goal we had in view when we started with such eagerness."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"The vulgar have not the power of emptying their mind of the only ideas they imbibed whilst their hands were employed; they cannot quickly turn from one kind of life to another."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"A few fundamental truths meet the first enquiry of reason, and appear as clear to an unwarped mind, as that air and bread are necessary to enable the body to fulfil its vital functions; but the opinions which men discuss with so much heat must be simplified and brought back to first principles; ...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"Perhaps the most improving exercise of the mind, confining the argument to the enlargement of the understanding, is the restless enquiries that hover on the boundary, or stretch over the dark abyss of uncertainty."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1791

"These modern Sapphos are conceited creatures, / They sport their thoughts as others do their features; / These but coquette it with a different part, / And seize the head, while others charm the heart."

— Falconar, Maria (b. 1771-) and Harriet (b. 1774-)

Date: 1791

The mind may be oppress'd with "weight of care"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1791

The mind may feel "Terrour and consternation"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1791

One may be as graceful in port and noble in stature as one is in mind discrete

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1791

One may be of "drowsy mind obtuse"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1791

"Each vice, to minds depraved by bondage known, / With sure contagion fastens on his own."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)