Date: December 1790

"But it is not that enthusiastic flame which in Greece and Rome consumed every sordid passion: no, self is the focus; and the disparting rays rise not above our foggy atmosphere."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: January 19, 1791

"It is that new invented virtue, which your masters canonize, that led their moral hero constantly to exhaust the stores of his powerful rhetoric in the expression of universal benevolence; whilst his heart was incapable of harbouring one spark of common parental affection."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: January 19, 1791

"You know them but at a distance, on the statements of those who always flatter the reigning power, and who, amidst their representations of the grievances, inflame your minds against those who are oppressed. These are amongst the effects of unremitted labour, when men exhaust their attention, bu...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1796

"Cold as ice themselves, they never could kindle in our breasts a spark of that zeal, which is necessary to a conflict with an adverse zeal; much less were they made to infuse into our minds that stubborn persevering spirit, which alone is capable of bearing up against those vicissitudes of fortu...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1801

Virtue may be a man's "eternal flame" or "ruling passion"

— Blacklock, Thomas (1721-1791)