Date: 1762-3

"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen, / When I say wit, I wisdom mean) / Where, (such the practice of the court, / Which legal precedents support) / Not one idea is allow'd / To pass unquestion'd in the crowd, / But ere it can obtain the grace / Of holding in the brain a place, / Before the chief i...

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"This glorious system form'd for man / To practise when and how he can, / If the five senses in alliance / To Reason hurl a proud defiance, / And, though oft conquer'd, yet unbroken, / Endeavour to throw off that yoke / Which they a greater slavery hold / Than Jewish bondage was of old."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"He [Reason], upright Justicer, no doubt / Ad libitum puts in and out, / Adjusts and settles in a trice / What virtue is, and what is vice."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"Let those who rigid judgment own / Submissive bow at Judgment's throne, / And if they of no value hold / Pleasure, till pleasure is grown cold, / Pall'd and insipid, forced to wait / For Judgment's regular debate / To give it warrant, let them find / Dull subjects suited to their mind."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762

"I'm speaking of thy mind alone; / Where keen reproaches all resort, / Where biting scandal holds her court; / From whence she throws her pois'nous dart / At ev'ry unprovoking heart."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762

"Under the discipline of society, these passions are subdued, and in a good measure eradicated. In their place succeed the kindly affections, which, meeting with all encouragement, take possession of the mind and govern our whole actions."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1762

"The unbridled Athamand, his sister's son, / In firm alliance with a noble princess, / Whom Persia's court had destin'd to his love, / (His tyrant passions brooking no controul,) / Demanded Zobeide as despotic master."

— Cradock, Joseph (1742-1826)

Date: 1762

"Shall kings controul th' eternal rights of nature? / The free-born mind is royal of itself, / Nor asks vain glosses from exterior grandeur."

— Cradock, Joseph (1742-1826)

Date: 1762

"C’est alors que la voix de la conscience reprendra sa force & son empire, c’est alors que la volupté pure qui naît du contentement de soi-même, & le regret amer de s’être avili, distingueront par des sentiments inépuisables le sort que chacun se sera préparé."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)