Date: 1774

"I will study Demosthenes and Cicero, not to discover an old Athenian or Roman custom, nor to puzzle myself with the value of talents, mines, drachms, and sesterces, like the learned blockheads in us; but to observe their choice of words, their harmony of diction, their method, their distribution...

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1776

"Yet in such pursuits great moderation is requisite, lest the mind too freely rove, and idly indulge itself in the airy wilds of fancy, to the neglect of real science and useful improvement."

— Berington, Joseph (1743-1827)

Date: 1776

"In short, he ranges, with curious attention, through the wide regions of truth; noting the different steps, that lead to it, by converging lines, and carefully distinguishing the false lights of fancy or passion from the cooler investigations of the reasoning faculties."

— Berington, Joseph (1743-1827)

Date: 1776

"If you really then think that, every process, termed mental, in man, is in fact nothing more than so many distinct nervous vibrations, then I readily grant that matter may think, for undoubtedly every stretched cord, when touched, will vibrate; and I will farther grant, that a fiddle, in that se...

— Berington, Joseph (1743-1827)

Date: 1777, 1778

"The mind of youth is a kind of tabula rasa;--at first unstained with guilt, and unadorned with virtue."

— Rack, Edmund (1735-1787)

Date: 1777, 1778

"May the fair page never be polluted!--may it become inscribed with every excellent virtue--and be thereby rendered comely in the sight of Men, of Angels, of the Deity!"

— Rack, Edmund (1735-1787)

Date: ca. 1780

"No Pleasures, believe me, that wretch shall e'er taste, / No comfort his bosom e'er find; / Who suffers ill-temper to ruffle his breast, / And fretfulness reign in his mind."

— Kilner, Dorothy (1755-1836)

Date: ca. 1780

"Let Truth then, my dear, still dwell on your tongue, / From her maxims O never depart; / But give yourself up to her guidance while young, / Her precepts engrave on your heart."

— Kilner, Dorothy (1755-1836)

Date: 1782

"She has given you besides some perspicuity, which qualifies you to distinguish interesting objects; a warmth of imagination which enables you to think with quickness; you often extract useful reflections from objects which presented none to my mind: you have a tender and a well meaning heart, yo...

— St. John de Crèvecoeur, J. Hector (1735-1813)

Date: 1782

"You carried out (through God's grace) an honest friendly heart, a clear discerning head, and a soul impressed with every humane feeling."

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)