Date: 1790

"The idle crowd in fashion's train, / Their trifling comment, pert reply, / Who talk so much, yet talk in vain, / How pleas'd for thee, Oh nymph, I fly! / For thine is all the wealth of mind, / Thine the unborrow'd gems of thought, / The flash of light, by souls refin'd, / From heav'n's empyreal ...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1790

"If you were thus destitute of mental funds, the proceeding is in its natural course."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1791

"It can be accounted for only in this way; that by reading and meditation, and a very close inspection of life, he had accumulated a great fund of miscellaneous knowledge, which, by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was ever ready at his call, and which he had constantly accustomed himself to cloth...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1792

"Brave spirit! He would coin his heart!"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1792

"Could gold once give thee to my eager arms, / Lo, into guineas would I coin my heart;"

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1792

"The variety of nature is such, that new objects, and new combinations of them, are continually adding something to our fund, and inlarging our collection: while the same kind of object occurring frequently, is seen under various shapes; and makes us, if I may so speak, more learned in nature."

— Gilpin, William (1724-1804)

Date: 1793

"I am not ashamed to acknowledge that I have perused the productions of some of our female pens, with the highest satisfaction; and am happy when I find any woman has so large a fund of amusement in her own mind."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: w. 1776, 1793

"His pocket and his skull are brothers, / They thrive by borrowing from others; / I thank my stars, with heart sincere, / I was not born to be a Peer."

— Burrell [née Raymond, later Clay], Sophia, Lady Burrell (1750-1802)

Date: 1794

"As to the learning that any person gains from school education, it serves only, like a small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for himself afterwards."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)