Date: 1776

"Would it were passed, and that like Aetna, though my bosom flamed, my head was crowned with snow."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"But who that has the least spark of imagination, sees not how languid the latter expression is, when compared with the former."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)

Date: December 10, 1776; 1777

"But I am persuaded, that scarce a poet is to be found, from Homer down to Dryden, who preserved a sound mind in a sound body, and continued practising his profession to the very last, whose later works are not as replete with the fire of imagination, as those which were produced in...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1777

"Her mind's a burning fire, / Where sudden thoughts, like wreaths of smoak arise, / And, parting from the flame, disperse in air."

— Home, John (1722-1808)

Date: 1777

"How cruel is it to extinguish by neglect or unkindness, the precious sensibility of an open temper, to chill the amiable glow of an ingenous soul, and to quench the bright flame of a noble and generous spirit!"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"If I may be allowed to change the allusion so soon, I would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benig...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"People do not always know what taste they have, till it is awakened by some corresponding object; nay, genius itself is a fire, which in many minds would never blaze, if not kindled by some external cause."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777, 1810

"While thus he ranges unconfined, / And glory fires his ardent mind."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: w. 1755, 1777

"But admitting a spiritual substance to be dispersed throughout the universe, like the ethereal fire of the Stoics, and to be the only inherent subject of thought, we have reason to conclude from analogy, that nature uses it after the same manner she does the other substance, matter."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1777

"At present in my brain there floats / A thousand parti-colored motes; / From which, if time would but permit, / I might sift some sparks of wit."

— Savage, Mary (fl. 1763-1777)