Date: 1691
"So innocent is the Soul of Kainophilus, so like fair white Paper, wherein you may presently see the least blot or speck of dirt that happens to fall upon it."
preview | full record— Dunton, John (1659–1732)
Date: 1693
"One while he fancied he saw her Dancing, another, that he saw with what a grace she spake, and every word of her discourse was as ready in his memory, as if they were the only ones engraven there; no wonder if those who will not give credit to the Stories of Apparitions, say, the Persons are del...
preview | full record— Anonymous
Date: 1721, 1722
"This noble passion is indeed always engraved upon their hearts; but imagination and education mould it a thousand ways."
preview | full record— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Date: 1724
"If I have here touch'd a young Lady's Vanity and Levity, it was to show her how beautiful she is without those Blots, which certainly stain the Mind, and stamp Deformity where the greatest Beauties would shine, were they banish'd."
preview | full record— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)
Date: 1761
"The image of Eloisa, never to be erased from my mind, shall be my shield, and render my soul invulnerable."
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)
Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English
"But I had found it: I did find and know an exalted mind, which raised me beyond myself, and made me all that I am capable of being. All the powers of my soul were extended, and the deep sentiment which nature engraved on my heart, was unfolded."
preview | full record— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)
Date: 1782
"[A]cquainted ere you meet that you were to meet him no more, your heart would be all softness and grief, and at the very moment when tenderness should be banished from your intercourse, it would bear down all opposition of judgment, spirit, and dignity: you would hang upon every word, because ev...
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1787
"They converse not, they open not their mouths, they are silent, but they engrave their principles on the heart in indelible characters, instead of inconsistently crowding them on the memory."
preview | full record— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)
Date: 1788
"My Lord, my present concern is of a very different nature; and I do assure and protest to your Lordship that no time nor intreaties nor persuasion will erase and obliterate and wipe away from my mind, the injury and prejudice the parties have done me, by thus."
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Date: 1992
"Even more important to David than the very natural worry that his wife and his son might grow fond of one another was the intoxicating feeling that he had a blank consciousness to work with, and it gave him great pleasure to knead this yielding clay with his artistic thumbs."
preview | full record— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)