Date: 1794

"My own mind is my own church."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors [that bolt into the mind of their own accord] with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth entertaining; and it is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"Every person of learning is finally his own teacher; the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are never so lasting as when they begin by conception."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"As to the learning that any person gains from school education, it serves only, like a small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for himself afterwards."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"It [Christianity] has put the whole orbit of reason into shade."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable Creation, yet it is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic account of the creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart of that story, the death...

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1796

"My sons, if rich, might wield / The fan emblaz'd with Psyche and her boy / O'er some enchantress, whose contagious sighs / Would blast the best impression of their souls."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1796

"The chains of care fall off my pensive mind, / When through the winds your spirit hails me."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1807

"Shakespear's page, my Lucy, shall unroll / To thy rapt sight the mirror of the soul"

— Brydges, Sir Samuel Egerton (1762-1837)