Date: 1762

"Pure from th' eternal Source of Being came / That Ray divine that lights the human Frame: / Yet oft, forgetful of it's heavenly Birth, / It sinks obscur'd beneath the Weight of the Earth: / Mechanic Pow'rs retard it's Flight, and hence / The Storms of Passion, and the Clouds of Sense: / 'Tis Lif...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"'Till then [death], the Muse essays the tuneful Art, / To fix her moral Lesson on thy Heart, / Illume thy Soul with Virtue's brightest Flame, / And point it to that Heav'n from whence it came."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1662, 1762

"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind; having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart."

— The Church of England

Date: 1763

"Doth Virtue in thy bosom brighter glow, / Or from a Spring more pure doth Action flow? / Is not thy Soul bound with those very chains / Which shackle us, or is that SELF, which reigns / O'er Kings and Beggars, which in all we see / Most strong and sov'reign, only weak in Thee?"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1763-4

"Since reason's lamp illuminates the mind, / And cogent proves eternity to man; / Since justice too, eternal, will require / Strict retribution for offences past; / Serious reflect on God's supreme decrees, / And learn obedience to his great commands"

— Mr. P--y (fl. 1763)

Date: December, 1763; 1774

"Thus his own eyes the Bigot blinds, / To shut out light from human minds."

— Lloyd, Robert (bap. 1733, d. 1764)

Date: 1763, 1765; 1766

"Powers that should spread in Reason's orient ray, / How are they darken'd, and debarr'd the day!"

— Langhorne, John (1735-1779)

Date: 1763

"I could have resisted her beauty only, but the mind which irradiates those speaking eyes"

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1765

"Modern philosophers give them other fine names and Julius Scaliger, in particular, used to call them "seeds of eternity" and also "zopyra"--meaning living fires or flashes of light hidden inside us but made visible by stimulation of the senses, as sparks can be struck by steel."

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Date: 1765

"Let those, whose arts to fatal paths betray, / The soul with passion's gloom tempestuous blind, / And snatch from Reason's ken th'auspicious ray / Truth darts from Heaven to guide th'exploring mind."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)