Date: 1777
"The philosophical doctrine of the slow recession of bodies from the sun, is a lively image of the reluctance with which we first abandon the light of virtue."
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Date: October, 1784
"HUMAN thoughts are like the planetary system, where many are fixed, and many wander, and many continue for ever unintelligible; or rather like meteors, which generally lose their substance with their lustre."
preview | full record— Anonymous
Date: 1794
"It [Christianity] has put the whole orbit of reason into shade."
preview | full record— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)
Date: 1796
"The effect [of wit on the mind] is strong,--because it's odd, / Like fire electric from a clod; / Or when fix'd air puts out a light, / Tho' vital makes it blaze more bright."
preview | full record— Courtenay, John Lees (1775?-1794)
Date: 1807
"Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart."
preview | full record— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)
Date: August 31, 1837
"But he, in his private observatory, cataloguing obscure and nebulous stars of the human mind, which as yet no man has thought of as such, — watching days and months, sometimes, for a few facts; correcting still his old records; — must relinquish display and immediate fame."
preview | full record— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)