Date: 1767

"But however properly arranged those materials may be, and however thoroughly digested this intellectual food, an original Genius will sometimes find an inconveniency resulting from it; for as no man can attend to and comprehend many different things at once, his mental faculties will in some cas...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Nature supplies the materials of his compositions; his senses are the under-workmen, while Imagination, like a masterly Architect, superintends and directs the whole. Or, to speak more properly, Imagination both supplies the materials, and executes the work, since it calls into being 'things tha...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"It may be easily conceived therefore, that an original Poetic Genius, possessing such innate treasure (if we may be allowed an unphilosophical expression) has no use for that which is derived from books, since he may be encumbered, but cannot be inriched by it; for though the chief merit of ordi...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"One obvious effect of it is, that it confines the attention to artificial rules, and ties the mind down to the observance of them, perhaps at the very time that the imagination is upon the stretch, and grasping at some idea astonishingly great, which however it is obliged, though with the utmost...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Poetic Genius in particular cannot flourish either in uninterrupted SUNSHINE, or in continual SHADE. It languishes under the blazing ardor of a summer noon, as its buds are blasted by the damp fogs and chilling breath of a winter sky."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"It is, that though the progress of Literature, Criticism and Civilization, have contributed to unfold the powers and extend the empire of Reason; have taught men to think more justly, as well as to express their sentiments which more precision."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767, 1784

"The curious structure of these visual orbs, / The windows of the mind; substance how clear, / Aqueous, or crystalline! through which the soul, / As thro' a glass, all outward things surveys."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1767, 1784

"This principle / In female minds a feebler empire holds, / Opposing less the specious arguments / For milder rule, and freedom's popular theme."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1763, 1767

"So stern Philosophy severe affirms, / With shrunk abstracted eye, and iron soul."

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1763, 1767

"The guardian genius of his dawning thought, / Who wide disclos'd to wisdom's sacred ray / The eager inlets of his ample mind, / And pour'd upon each opening mental cell, / The virtue-forming scientific beam / With letter'd and religious radiance fill'd, / The fair expanses of his princely soul, ...

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)