Date: w. 1755, 1777

"And does any thing steel the breast of judges and juries against the sentiments of humanity but reflections on necessity and public interest?"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1778

"I must first see what state my troops are in.--Go you, Drill, and bring 'em before us--here they come! here they come--come on my hearts of gold"

— Pilon, Frederick (1750-1788)

Date: 1778

"Education, and good company are necesary to polish the mind----but can any education, or any company, convey a fine understanding, where it has not been given by nature?"

— Caulfield (fl. 1778)

Date: August 4, 1778

"Behold! the soul shall waft away, / Whene'er we come to die, / And leave its cottage made of clay, / In twinkling of an eye."

— Hammon, Jupiter (1711-c.1800)

Date: 1778

"As to my Fanny and myself, our souls had been created, like sympathetic steel and magnet, to leap together at first sight!"

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1779

"Then steel your mind, to bear the story's horror."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1779, 1781

"Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have an intrinsick and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual gold which defies destruction: but gold may be so concealed in baser matter that only a chymist can recover it; sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebe...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: January 1, 1779

"There [to Heaven's Regions] when the soul, in search of purer day, / Loos'd from mortality's impris'ning clay / Shall swifter than the forked lightning dart."

— Anstey, Christopher (1724-1805)

Date: June 5, 1780

"Some, though they wish it, are not steel'd enough, / Nor is each would-be villain conscience-proof."

— Crabbe, George (1754-1832)

Date: 1780

Locke expelled innate ideas by asserting that "disquisition and proof were the test of truth; and that whatever would not stand their touch, must be considered as base metal."

— Burges, Sir James Bland (1752-1824)