Date: 1791
"Your resolution to obey your father I sincerely approve; but do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility by vows; they will sometime leave a thorn in your mind, which you will, perhaps, never be able to extract or eject."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1791, 1794
"I will wear a smile on my face, though the thorn rankles in my heart."
preview | full record— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)
Date: December 10, 1790; 1791
"It is an absurdity therefore to suppose we are born with this taste, though we are with the seeds of it, which by the heat and kindly influence of his genius, may be ripened in us."
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: 1791
"He was of opinion, that the English nation cultivated both their soil and their reason better than any other people; but admitted that the French, though not the highest, perhaps, in any department of literature, yet in every department were very high."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1792
"The business of education in this case, is only to conduct the shooting tendrils to a proper pole; yet after laying precept upon precept, without allowing a child to acquire judgement itself, parents expect them to act in the same manner by this borrowed fallacious light, as if they had illumina...
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1792
"In fact, behaviour in most circumstances is now so much thought of, that simplicity of character is rarely seen: yet, if men were only anxious to cultivate each virtue, and let it take root firmly in the mind, the grace resulting from it, its natural exterior mark, would soon strip affectation a...
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1792
"The pure animal spirits, which make both mind and body shoot out, and unfold the tender blossoms of hope, are turned sour, and vented in vain wishes or pert repinings, that contract the faculties and spoil the temper."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: February 1792
"Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced."
preview | full record— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)
Date: 1792
"But indeed, a little consideration will soon enable us to account for the ignorance of mankind in this interesting particular; and will teach us, that it solely arises from those baneful habits of perverse reasoning, which have from time to time immemorial taken root in the minds of men, and hav...
preview | full record— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)
Date: 1793
"It is of great importance that this idea should be extirpated."
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)