Date: 1759

"Their [pedants'] poring upon black and white too subtly / Has turn'd the Insides of their Brains to motly."

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1759

"Their [pedants'] constant overstraining of the Mind / Distorts the Brain, as Horses break their Wind / Or rude Confusions of the Things they read / Get up, like noxious Vapours, in the Head, / Until they have their constant Wanes and Fulls, / And Changes in the Insides of their Skulls."

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1772

"On his worn Pallet, now, view him reclin'd; / Terrifick Visions haunt his tortur'd Mind."

— Whyte, Samuel (1733-1811)

Date: 1775

"What fancied zone can circumscribe the Soul, / Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs, / By Reason's light on Resolution's wings, / Spite of her frail / companion, dauntless goes / O'er Libya's deserts and through Zembla's snows? "

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1775

The judgment may mend the plan drawn by fancy

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1781

"[A]ll you've said / Seems to wear Reason's stamp."

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1793, 1797

"Then, while each hideous image to his mind, / Rises terrific, o'er a bleeding corse / Stumbling he falls."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1795

"The passions are the wings of spirit. Cold tranquillity the grave of thought"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1795

"The mind of man, when disturbed, is a chaos, 'without form and void.' His ideas take no shape, or the formation he tries at swiftly dies."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1795

"Millions of chimeras floated on my imagination all were rejected in speedy succession ere they became old enough to take the colour of reason; yet fancy will be busy till we are no more."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)