Date: 1777

"The mind, says he, is a barren soil, is a soil soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized, and enriched with foreign matter."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"He must invigorate them by exercise, polish them by conversation, and increase them by every species of elegant and virtuous knowledge, and the mind will not fail to reproduce with interest those seeds, which are sown in it by study and observation."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"He was born with better feelings; he was naturally humane, tender, compassionate but he had, unfortunately for himself, been educated by a father, who, as we have already observed, had taken the most unwearied pains to eradicate from his expanding mind those social affections which the Deity has...

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1778

The "pure flame" of virtue is planted "by an unerring rule" and glows in the heart

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Be ever thus, my dearest Evelina, dauntless in the cause of distress! let no weak fears, no timid doubts, deter you from the exertion of your duty, according to the fullest sense of it that Nature has implanted in your mind."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Yet, Madam, so hard is it to root from the mind its favourite principles, or prejudices, call them which you please, that I lingered another week ere I had the resolution to send away a letter which I regarded as the death of my independence."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1779

"Not Man, but thriftless Nature, be accused, / Who to seductions left our minds a prey-- / --Nay more, who doth herself ensnare us; / Hath hung us round with senses exquisite, / Hath planted in our hearts resistless passions, / The first to weaken, and the last to war / On poor, defenceless, nake...

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1782

"'Hast thou so much heart?' cried he, with emotion, "and has fortune, though it has cursed thee with the temptation of prosperity, not yet rooted from thy mind its native benevolence?"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1783

"Weeds in abundance spring up in a piece of ground which is neglected; -- so do naughty dispositions in an uncultivated mind."

— Fenn [née Frere], Ellenor (1744-1813)

Date: 1784

The partial Muse, has from my earliest hours / Smil'd on the rugged path I'm doom'd to tread, / And still with sportive hand has snatch'd wild flowers, / To weave fantastic garlands for my head: / But far, far happier is the lot of those / Who never learn'd her dear delusive art; / Which, while i...

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)