Date: 1831

"There are a multitude of causes that will produce a miscarriage of this sort, where the richest soil, impregnated with the choicest seeds of learning and observation, shall entirely fail to present us with such a crop as might rationally have been anticipated"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"They attempt many things, sketch out plans, which, if properly filled up, might illustrate the literature of a nation, and extend the empire of the human mind, but which yet they desert as soon as begun, affording us the promise of a beautiful day, that, ere it is noon, is enveloped in darkest t...

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"They skim away from one flower in the parterre of literature to another, like the bee, without, like the bee, gathering sweetness from each, to increase the public stock, and enrich the magazine of thought."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"It is therefore in this way that a preceptor, by undertaking to enlighten the mind of his pupil, enlightens his own."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"Familiar as [Shakespeare] was with the evanescent touches of mind en dishabille, and in its innermost feelings, he could not sustain the tone of a character, penetrated with a divine enthusiasm, or fervently devoted to a generous cause, though this is truly within the compass of our nature."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

At a period in history the mind of man may be imagined "sunk into a profound sleep"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"Terence and Virgil maintain an universal, undisputed empire over the minds of men. "

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

Cowley "was a most amiable man; and the loveliness of his mind shines out in his productions"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"The human mind is a creature of celestial origin, shut up and confined in a wall of flesh"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1832

"The mind of a new-born infant .... so far from being, as Locke affirms, a sheet of blank paper, is ... a perfect encyclopedia, comprehending not only the newest discoveries, but all those still more valuable and wonderful inventions that will hereafter be made."

— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)