Date: 1701, 1704
"The application of our Thoughts to other Subjects is like looking upon the Rays of the Sun as it shines to us from a Wall, or upon the Image of it as it returns from a Watry Mirrour, but this is looking up directly against the Fons veri lucidus, the bright Source of Intellectual Light a...
preview | full record— Norris, John (1657-1712)
Date: 1710
"Curse on that foppish Name, that empty Sound ['Honour'], / In whose dark Maze Mens Intellects are drown'd."
preview | full record— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)
Date: 1713
"[I]mpetuous Passions" may "toss the Soul, /And Tides of boiling Blood reluctant roll."
preview | full record— Trapp, Joseph (1679-1747)
Date: 1728
"Though my Heart were as frozen as Ice, / At his Flame 'twould have melted away."
preview | full record— Gay, John (1685-1732)
Date: 1739
"O that I as a little Child / May follow Thee, nor ever rest / Till sweetly Thou hast pour'd thy mild / And lowly Mind into my Breast."
preview | full record— Wesley, John and Charles
Date: 1742
"My soul is all a troubled sea, / I cannot find my rest in Thee."
preview | full record— Wesley, John and Charles
Date: 1747
Johnson's dictionary may "awaken to the care of purer diction some men of genius, whose attention to argument makes them negligent of style, or whose rapid imagination, like the Peruvian torrents, when it brings down gold, mingles it with sand."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, July 28, 1750
"Thus in time want is enlarged without bounds; an eagerness for increase of possessions deluges the soul, and we sink into the gulphs of insatiability, only because we do not sufficiently consider, that all real need is very soon supplied, and all real danger of its invasion easily precluded."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, September 15, 1750
"The attention is dissipated by variety, and acts more weakly upon any single part, as that torrent may be drawn off to different channels, which, pouring down in one collected body, cannot be resisted."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, September 29, 1750
"Nor is it necessary, that, to feel this uneasiness, the mind should be extended to any great diffusion of generosity, or melted by uncommon warmth of benevolence; for that prudence which the world teaches, and a quick sensibility of private interest, will direct us to shun needless enmities; sin...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)