Date: w. 1755, 1777
"She [Nature] employs it [spiritual substance] as a kind of paste or clay; modifies it into a variety of forms and existences; dissolves after a time each modification, and from its substance erects a new form."
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Date: 1780
"My Potter stamp on me thy clay, Thy only stamp of love!"
preview | full record— Wesley, John (1703-1791)
Date: 1786
"For, as the state of heat, in metallic substances, is the state wherein they are made capable to assume new or beautiful forms, so the state of affliction is the state to mould the human mind to every pursuit that is congenial to the dignity of its nature."
preview | full record— Nolan, William (fl. 1786)
Date: 1790
"Shining parts, like the bright colourings of porcelain, or the lustres of glass in a well furnished house, are beautiful decorations and striking ornaments; but good sense, like the solid service of plate, is alone substantial and intrinsically valuable."
preview | full record— Moore, Charles (fl. 1785-90)
Date: 1790
"Vain are a man's titles--vain his wealth--vain his pursuits of pleasure--the guilty mind has no enjoyment--neither rank nor riches can steel the breast against the stings of conscience."
preview | full record— Trusler, John (1735-1820)
Date: 1790
"The worst of these politics of revolution is this; they temper and harden the breast, in order to prepare it for the desperate strokes which are sometimes used in extreme occasions."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1791
"I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be found more bark and steel for the mind, if I may use the expression; more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1796
"He who feels the spirit in him, will be conscious of possessing the pearl of great price, and will lock it up in the sanctuary of his heart, as his richest treasure, never to be despoiled of it by the seducing arts of false philosophy; never to exchange that pure gold, which is the same yesterda...
preview | full record— Anonymous
Date: 1798
"In making observations upon subjects which are new to us, we must be content to use our memory unassisted at first by our reason; we must treasure up the ore and rubbish together, because we cannot immediately distinguish them from each other."
preview | full record— Edgeworth, Maria
Date: w. 1821, 1840
"It is as it were the interpretation of a diviner nature through our own; but its footsteps are like those of a wind over the sea, which the coming calm erases, and whose traces remain only as on the wrinkled sand which paves it."
preview | full record— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)