Date: 1742, 1777

"Away then with all those vain pretences of making ourselves happy within ourselves, of feasting on our own thoughts, of being satisfied with the consciousness of well-doing, and of despising all assistance and all supplies from external objects."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1756

"When I confess that I think this Notion a Mistake, I know to whom I am speaking, for I am satisfied that Reasons are like Liquors, and there are some of such a Nature as none but strong Heads can bear."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1767

"The quality of which we are treating, wherever it is discovered, will afford such a delicious entertainment to the mind, that it can scarce be ever satisfied with a banquet so exquisitely prepared; satiety being prevented by a succession of dainties, ever various and every new."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"But however properly arranged those materials may be, and however thoroughly digested this intellectual food, an original Genius will sometimes find an inconveniency resulting from it; for as no man can attend to and comprehend many different things at once, his mental faculties will in some cas...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: December 14, 1770; 1771

"The mind requires nourishment adapted to its growth; and what may have promoted our earlier efforts, might retard us in our nearer approaches to perfection."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1774

"Many people lose a great deal of time by reading: for they read frivolous and idle books, such as the absurd romances of the two last centuries; where characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed, and sentiments that were never felt, pompously described: the Oriental ravings and extra...

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: December 10, 1776; 1777

"The natural appetite or taste of the human mind is for Truth; whether that truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of the several parts of a...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1781

"The mother loveth her little child; she bringeth it up on her knees; she nourisheth its body with food; she feedeth its mind with knowledge."

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

Date: 1782

"Cheer up, my child of discretion--and comfort you self that every day will bring the endearing moment of meeting, so much nearer--chew the cud upon rapture in reversion--and indulge your fancy with the sweet food of intellectual endearments;--paint in your imagination the thousand graces of your...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"There is something so amazingly grand--so stupendously affecting--in the contemplating the works of the Divine Architect, either in the moral, or the intellectual world, that I think one may rightly call it the cordial of the soul--it is the physic of the mind--and the best antidote against weak...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)