Date: 1751, 1791

"Now take a Simile at Hand, / Compare the mental Soil to Land."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: Saturday, December 21, 1751

"A careless glance upon a favourite author, or transient survey of the varieties of life, is sufficient to supply the first hint or seminal idea, which, enlarged by the gradual accretion of matter stored in the mind, is by the warmth of fancy easily expanded into flowers, and sometimes ripened in...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 12, 1751

"There are many diseases both of the body and mind, which it is far easier to prevent than to cure, and therefore I hope you will think me employed in an office not useless either to learning or virtue, if I describe the symptoms of an intellectual malady, which, though at first it seizes only th...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: March 24, 1752

"The Mind of Man is compared by Montaigne to a fertile Field, which tho' it be left entirely uncultivated, still retains all its genial Powers; but instead of producing any Thing lovely or profitable, sends forth only Weeds and wild Herbs of various Kinds, which serve to no Use or Emolument whats...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1752

"Heroism, romantick Heroism, was rooted deeply in her Heart; it was her Habit of thinking, a Principle imbib'd from Education"

— Lennox, née Ramsay, (Barbara) Charlotte (1730/1?-1804)

Date: 1752

"Love, on the contrary, sprouts usually up in the richest and noblest Minds; but there unless nicely watched, pruned, and cultivated, and carefully kept clear of those vicious Weeds which are too apt to surround it, it branches forth into Wildness and Disorder, produces nothing desirable, but ch...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1752

"Ambition scarce ever produces any Evil, but when it reigns in cruel and savage Bosoms; and Avarice seldom flourishes at all but in the basest and poorest Soil."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1752

"Love ... sprouts usually up in the richest and noblest minds; but there, unless nicely watched, pruned, and cultivated, and carefully kept clear of those vicious weed which are too apt to surround it, it branches forth into wildness and disorder, produces nothing desirable, but chokes up and kil...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1752

"'The greatest Difficulty,' added the Gentleman, 'which Persons of your Turn of Mind meet with, is in finding proper Objects of their Goodness: For nothing sure can be more irksome to a generous Mind, than to discover, that it hath thrown away all its good Offices on a Soil that bears no other Fr...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1753

"The knowledge of good is form'd in our souls, as the seeds are in the ground; there is a time when they lie conceal'd, a time when they spring forth, and a time when they bear fruit"

— Du Bosc, Jacques (d. 1660)