Date: 1760
"Dim burns the Lamp of Life; this Breast heaves slow; / My Soul shall soon the last sad Journey go."
preview | full record— Langhorne,William (1721-1772)
Date: 1760-7
"[A]nd what is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon Crackenthorp or Burgersdicius, or any Dutch logician or commentator."
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1760-7
Wit and judgment are two luminaries and "their irradiations are suffered from time to time to shine down upon us."
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1760-7
Ideas "follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round by the heat of a candle."
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: w. May, 1756; 1761
"For these, if I forget my patron's praise, / While bright ideas dance upon my mind, / Ne'er may these eyes behold auspicious days, / May friends prove faithless, and the Muse unkind."
preview | full record— Fawkes, Francis (1720-1777)
Date: 1762-3
"Conjecture thus, That mental ignis fatuus, Led his poor brains a weary dance From France to England, hence to France."
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: 1763
"Doth Virtue in thy bosom brighter glow, / Or from a Spring more pure doth Action flow? / Is not thy Soul bound with those very chains / Which shackle us, or is that SELF, which reigns / O'er Kings and Beggars, which in all we see / Most strong and sov'reign, only weak in Thee?"
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: 1766
"The 'wise' man, makes use of those means, that are most proper for his purpose; he conducts himself, by the light of reason."
preview | full record— Trusler, John (1735-1820)
Date: 1766
"'Infatuation' acts so strongly, as in some measure, to take away that reason, which is the light of the mind; and thus darkening it, leads a man into the grossest errors."
preview | full record— Trusler, John (1735-1820)
Date: 1767, 1784
"But if foul Passion, or distemper'd Pride, / Impede its search, or Phrenzy seize the brain, / Then Ignorance a gloomy darkness spreads, / Or Superstition, with mishapen forms, / Erects its savage empire in the mind."
preview | full record— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)