Date: 1759

"Some Readers read too much, as Gluttons eat, / These Flatulence produce, and those Conceit; / If you, by reading much, would Knowledge gain, / Think, while you read, or you will read in vain."

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)

Date: 1774

"Many people lose a great deal of time by reading: for they read frivolous and idle books, such as the absurd romances of the two last centuries; where characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed, and sentiments that were never felt, pompously described: the Oriental ravings and extra...

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1782

"There is something so amazingly grand--so stupendously affecting--in the contemplating the works of the Divine Architect, either in the moral, or the intellectual world, that I think one may rightly call it the cordial of the soul--it is the physic of the mind--and the best antidote against weak...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"I have heard it more than once observed of fortunate adventurers--they have come home enriched in purse--but wretchedly barren in intellects--the mind, my dear Jack, wants food--as well as the stomach--why then should not one wish to increase in knowledge as well as money?"

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: December 1790

"A few fundamental truths meet the first enquiry of reason, and appear as clear to an unwarped mind, as that air and bread are necessary to enable the body to fulfil its vital functions; but the opinions which men discuss with so much heat must be simplified and brought back to first principles; ...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)