Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English
"A darkness spreads over my eyes; heaven and earth seem to dwell in my soul and absorb all its powers, like the idea of a beloved mistress."
preview | full record— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)
Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English
"At times when I am ready to shoot myself, she plays that air, and the darkness which hung over me is dispersed, and I breathe freely again."
preview | full record— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)
Date: 1783
"When first the orient rays of beauty move / The conscious soul, they light the lamp of love"
preview | full record— Mason, William (1725-1797)
Date: 1787
"This was a ray of intelligence which pointed out to the discerning parent the path prescribed by nature."
preview | full record— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)
Date: 1788-89
"At first, indeed, before she is excited by science, she is oppressed with lethargy, and clouded with oblivion; but in proportion as learning and enquiry stimulate her dormant powers, she wakens from the dreams of ignorance, and opens her eye to the irradiations of wisdom"
preview | full record— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)
Date: 1788-89
"The former [Platonic philosophy] fills the soul with intelligible light, breaks her lethargic fetters, and elevates her to the principle of things; the latter [Lockean philosophy] clouds the intellectual eye of the soul, by increasing her oblivion, strengthens her corporeal bands, and hurries he...
preview | full record— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)
Date: 1792
Light may break in and great ideas may dawn upon the mind
preview | full record— Tytler, Alexander Fraser (1747-1813); Schiller (1759-1805)
Date: 1799
"Oh thou, our Father above, who surveyest the whole world with one glance, diffuse thy light into our hearts!"
preview | full record— Plumptre, Anne (1760-1818); Kotzebue (1761-1819)