Date: 1757

"They who have not taken these methods, if their Taste decides quickly, it is always uncertainly; and their quickness is owing to their presumption and rashness, and not to any sudden irradiation that in a moment dispels all darkness from their minds."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1757

"Now this great Ambition, which in other Times or Nations hath wrought such wonderful Effects, is no longer to be found among us. It is the Pride of Equipage, the Pride of Title, the Pride of Fortune, or the Pride of Dress, that have assumed the Empire over our Souls, and levelled Ambition with t...

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1757, 1777

"However we may be hurried away by the spectacle; whatever dominion the senses and imagination may usurp over the reason, there still lurks at the bottom a certain idea of falsehood in the whole of what we see"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757, 1777

"But TERENCE and VIRGIL maintain an universal, undisputed empire over the minds of men."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"This in the mean time is obvious, that the empire of all religious faith over the understanding is wavering and uncertain, subject to every variety of humour, and dependent on the present incidents, which strike the imagination."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"The universal propensity to believe in invisible, intelligent power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human nature, may be considered as a kind of mark or stamp, which the divine workman has set upon his work."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"Since, therefore, the mind of man appears of so loose and unsteddy a contexture, that, even at present, when so many persons find an interest in continually employing on it the chissel and the hammer, yet are they not able to engrave theological tenets with any lasting impression; how much more ...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"During such calm sunshine of the mind, these spectres of false divinity never make their appearance."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"Their root strikes deeper into the mind, and springs from the essential and universal properties of human nature."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1780?

"Lust is the unbridled Horse of the Soul that has thrown its Rider."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)