Date: 1782

"Such a research would richly pay us--for the end would be conviction--so much on the side of miraculous mercy--such an unanswerable proof of the superintendency of Divine Providence, as would effectually cure us of rash despondency--and melt our hearts--with devotional aspirations--till we poure...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1783

" And when thou yields to night thy wide domain, / Let rays of truth enlight his sleeping brain."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1783

"When first the orient rays of beauty move / The conscious soul, they light the lamp of love"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: April, 1783

"An Hypochondriack is subject to forgetfulness, which may be owing to another cause; that there is a darkness in his mind, or that its perceptive eye is injured and weak at times."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: April, 1783

"Or it may be thus: his ideas hide themselves like birds in gloomy weather; but in warm sunshine they spring forth gay and airy."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1783

"Although there may be some few exceptions, yet in general it holds, that when the bent of the mind is wholly directed towards some one object, exclusive, in a manner, of others, there is the fairest prospect of eminence in that, whatever it be. The rays must converge to a point, in order to glow...

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

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."

— Anonymous

Date: October, 1784

"The understanding is like the sun, which gives light and life to the whole intellectual world; but the memory, regarding those things only that are past, is like the moon, which is new and full and has her wane by turns."

— Anonymous

Date: 1784

"But when the English, (for though the Portuguese and Spaniards had transported Africans more early to their American settlements; yet Hawkins, an Englishman, is said first to have given occasion for the present inhuman trade) a nation most highly favoured of liberty, is viewed as taking the lead...

— Ramsay, James (1733-1789)

Date: 1784

"I hurry forward, passion's helplesss slave! And scorning reason's mild and sober light, / Pursue the path that leads me to the grave!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)