Date: 1789, 1797

"Still in this breast shall dearest Emma reign, / Nor e'er my will your virgin choice shall sway."

— Berkeley, George Monck (1763-1793)

Date: 1800, 1801

A woman's heart may be the judge

— Thompson, Benjamin (1776-1816); Kotzebue (1761-1819)

Date: 1803

"[W]rithing Mania sits on Reason's throne, /Or Melancholy marks it for her own"

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1803

"Reason's empire o'er the world presides, / And man from brute, and man from man divides"

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1831

"They attempt many things, sketch out plans, which, if properly filled up, might illustrate the literature of a nation, and extend the empire of the human mind, but which yet they desert as soon as begun, affording us the promise of a beautiful day, that, ere it is noon, is enveloped in darkest t...

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"Terence and Virgil maintain an universal, undisputed empire over the minds of men. "

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: September 10, 1836

"The first effort of thought tends to relax this despotism of the senses, which binds us to nature as if we were a part of it, and shows us nature aloof, and, as it were, afloat."

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: September 10, 1836

"These are examples of Reason’s momentary grasp of the sceptre; the exertions of a power which exists not in time or space, but an instantaneous in-streaming causing power."

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: 1957

"That lofty monarch, Monarch Mind, / Blue-blooded in coarse country reigned."

— Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)