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."

— 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 ...

— 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."

— 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; ...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"Man has been termed, with strict propriety, a microcosm, a little world in himself."

— 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."

— 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."

— West, Jane (1758-1852)

Date: 1791

Gods are "swift as the traveller's thought"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1791

"But when the Gods with evils unforeseen / Smite him, he bears them with a grudging mind; / For such as the complexion of his lot / By the appointment of the Sire of all, Such is the colour of the mind of man."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1791

The mind may be haunted by a thought

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)