Date: 1785
"He [Johnson] said, he did not grudge Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the House of Commons, mere...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1785
"I have often experienced, that scenes through which a man has passed, improve by lying in the memory: they grow mellow."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1788
"Mary could not help thinking that in his company her mind expanded, as he always went below the surface. She increased her stock of ideas, and her taste was improved."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1788
"Her mind was unhinged, and passion unperceived filled her whole soul."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1788
"Whenever she did, or said, any thing she thought Henry would have approved of--she could not avoid thinking with anguish, of the rapture his approbation ever conveyed to her heart--a heart in which there was a void, that even benevolence and religion could not fill."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789
"So poignant a mind in a vulgariz'd shell,/ Resembles a bucket of gold in a well; / 'Tis like Ceylon's best spice in a rude-fashion'd jar, / Or Comedy coop'd in a Dutch man of war."
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)
Date: 1789
"A different store his richer freight imparts-- / The gem of virtue, and the gold of hearts; / The social sense, the feelings of mankind, / And the large treasure of a godlike mind!"
preview | full record— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)