Date: 1790
"In vain we may lament the loss of our tranquillity; for peace, like the wandering dove, has forsaken its habitation in the bosom, and will return no more."
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)
Date: March 8, 1790
"Your pow'r my captive heart in chains shall bind, / Sweet as the graces of your face and mind."
preview | full record— Kemble, John Philip (1757-1823)
Date: 1790
"The worst of these politics of revolution is this; they temper and harden the breast, in order to prepare it for the desperate strokes which are sometimes used in extreme occasions."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1790
"But as these occasions may never arrive, the mind receives a gratuitous taint; and the moral sentiments suffer not a little, when no political purpose is served by their depravation."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: December 1790
"From the many just sentiments interspersed through the letter before me, and from the whole tendency of it, I should believe you to be a good, though a vain man, if some circumstances in your conduct did not render the inflexibility of your integrity doubtful; and for this vanity a knowledge of ...
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: December 1790
"The passions are necessary auxiliaries of reason: a present impulse pushes us forward, and when we discover that the game did not deserve the chace, we find that we have gone over much ground, and not only gained many new ideas, but a habit of thinking."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: December 1790
"A few fundamental truths meet the first enquiry of reason, and appear as clear to an unwarped mind, as that air and bread are necessary to enable the body to fulfil its vital functions; but the opinions which men discuss with so much heat must be simplified and brought back to first principles; ...
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: December 1790
"Man has been termed, with strict propriety, a microcosm, a little world in himself."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1791
"If you can but kindle in your mind any strong desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some particular excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break away, without any effect upon your conduct, and commonly without any traces left upon the memory."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1791
"In the rich realms of polished taste, / Where judgment penetrates to find / The treasures of the unwrought mind, / Where conversation's ardent spirit / Refines from dross the ore of merit, / Where emulation aids the flame / And stamps the sterling bust of fame."
preview | full record— West, Jane (1758-1852)