Date: 1751, 1777

"The one [reason] discovers objects, as they really stand in nature, without addition or diminution: The other [taste] has a productive faculty, and gilding or staining all natural objects with the colours, borrowed from internal sentiment, raises, in a manner, a new creation."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: February 18, 1752

"A Good Name, says the Dramatic Poet, is the immediate Jewel of a Man's Soul."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1754

"In the first place, we must offer him the tribute of our gold, as to our true King; that is, we must daily present him with our souls, stampt with his own image, and burnished with divine love."

— Challoner, Richard (1691-1781)

Date: 1754

"Our souls are stampt with God's own image, to this very end, that we should give them in tribute to him, by perfect love: 'render then to God the things that are God's'; by daily offering your whole souls up to him, by fervent acts of love; and you shall have given him your gold."

— Challoner, Richard (1691-1781)

Date: 1754

"The mind of man does often what princes and states have done. It gives a currency to brass and copper coined in the several philosophical and theological mints, and raises the value of gold and silver above that of their true standard."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1757

"For, as an alloy to its very great advantages, there is something selfish, ungenerous and illiberal in the nature and views of trade, that tends to debase and sink the mind below its natural state."

— Harris, Joseph (bap. 1704, d. 1764)

Date: 1759

"That a Man may be scarce less ignorant of his own powers, than an Oyster of its pearl, or a Rock of its diamond; that he may possess dormant, unsuspected abilities, till awakened by loud calls, or stung up by striking emergencies, is evident from the sudden eruption of some men, out of perfec...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1759

"So Thoughts, when become too common, should lose their Currency; and we should send new metal to the Mint, that is, new meaning to the Press."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"A mind too vigorous and active, serves only to consume the body to which it is joined, as the richest jewels are soonest found to wear their settings."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1765

"Une pierre de marbre qui a des veines plutôt que d'une pierre de marbre tout unie ou de tablettes vides, c'est-à-dire de ce qui s'appelle tabula rasa chez les philosophes."

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)