Date: 1748, 1754

"Little Objects, mean Company, mean Cares, and mean Business cramp the Mind, contract its Views, and give it a creeping Air and Deportment."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"But when [the mind] soars above mortal Cares and mortal Pursuits, into the Regions of Divinity, and converses with the greatest and best of Beings, it spreads itself into a wider Compass, takes higher Flights in Reason and Goodness, and becomes God-like in its Air and Manners."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"[I]t may be said of most Men, that their intellectual Organs are as much shut up and secluded from proper Nourishment and Exercise in that little Circle to which they are confined, as the bodily Organs are in the Womb."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1752

Pleasure is "the secret Spring that actuates man"

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [pseud.]

Date: 1761, 1765

"If Prejudices rule with tyrant sway, / Teach them the voice of Reason to obey."

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

Date: 1761, 1765

"Labour and Want (unhospitable twain) / Chill not the current in Life's salient vein; / Nor damp the spirits, else of sprightly cast, / Nor check the nobler passions of the breast; / Nor blunt the fine Sensation's tender edge, / Which man's chief pride philosophers allege. / Thus some fair ...

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

Date: 1761, 1765

"A taste, improv'd by Education, finds / Pleasures where none appear to ruder minds; / Scenes, where the croud but few attractions see, / Affect it in an exquisite degree: / As telescopes, the finer ground, convey / More striking beauties by the visual ray; / Or magnets, as prepar'd the mor...

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)