Date: 1772, 1810

"'So vain his wishes, and so weak his mind, / 'His soul, a bright obscurity at best, / 'And rough with tempests his afflicted breast, / 'His life, a flower ere evening sure to fade, / 'His highest joys, the shadow of a shade."

— Jones, Sir William (1746-1794)

Date: 1773

"Not all the storms that shake the pole / Can e'er disturb thy halcyon soul, / And smooth unaltered brow."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1773

"The potent sounds like lightning dart / Resistless through the glowing heart"

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1774

Romances "ventilate the mind by sudden gusts of passion; and prevent the stagnation of thought, by a fresh infusion of dissimilar ideas"

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1774

"This activity of imagination, by which it darts with the quickness of lightning, through all possible views of the ideas which are presented, arises from the same perfection of the associating principles, which produces the other qualities of genius."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"My mind is calm and serene, like the first fine mornings of spring."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"My sensations change with the rapidity of lightning."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"The whole force of these words fell like a stroke of thunder on the heart of the unfortunate Werter."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1776

"I really begin to think that his heart is 'soused in snow,' as Madame de l'Enclos says of Sevigné, which neither your bright eyes or mine can thaw."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"Whatever regards the analysis of the operations of the mind, which is quicker than lightning in all her energies, must in a great measure be abstruse and dark."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)