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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."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

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Date: December 10, 1788; 1789

"The history of his gradual advancement, and the means by which he acquired such excellence in his art, would come nearer to our purpose and wishes, if it were by any means attainable; but the flow progress of advancement is in general, imperceptible to the man himself who makes it; it is the con...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

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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!"

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

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Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827

"The cistern contains: the fountain overflows / One thought, fills immensity."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

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Date: 1790

"All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

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Date: 1790

"All your sophisters cannot produce any thing better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for the great conservatories and magazines of our rights and...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

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Date: 1790

"But if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium from the hot spirit drawn out of the alembick of hell, which in France is now so furiously boiling, we should uncover our nakedness by throwing off that Christian religion which has hitherto been our boast and comfort, and one great source...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

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Date: 1790

"Some charitable dole is wanting to these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void which reigns in minds which have nothing on earth to hope or fear."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

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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)

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Date: 1791

"As in filling a vessel drop by dy drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. "

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.