Date: 1754
"The mind of man does often what princes and states have done. It gives a currency to brass and copper coined in the several philosophical and theological mints, and raises the value of gold and silver above that of their true standard."
preview | full record— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)
Date: 1754
"Bred to think as well as speak by rote, they furnish their minds, as they furnish their houses or cloath their bodies, with the fancies of other men, and according to the mode of the age and country."
preview | full record— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)
Date: 1759
"The minds of the Schoolmen were almost as much cloistered as their bodies; they had but little learning, and few books."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1759
"So Thoughts, when become too common, should lose their Currency; and we should send new metal to the Mint, that is, new meaning to the Press."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1759
"Such demonstration have we, that the theatre is not yet opened, in which solid happiness can be found by man; because none are more than comparatively good; and folly has a corner in the heart of the wise."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1763 (repr. 1776); 1794 (repr. 1799)
"That perhaps this may be a state of imprisonment to the soul, as many of the philosophers thought; and that when it is set at liberty from the body, it may obtain new and noble ways of perception and action, to us at present unknown."
preview | full record— Doddridge, Philip (1702-1751)
Date: 1774
"Let me, therfore, most earnestly recommend to you, to hoard up, while you can, a great stock of knowledge; for though, during the dissipation of your youth, you may not have occasion to spend much of it; yet, you may depend upon it, that a time will come, when you will want it to maintain you. P...
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Date: 1776
"But the greatest happiness of the greatest number requires, that they should be not only imagined but proved: and this they shall now be, in so far as natural probability, aided by whatever support it may be thought to receive from the character of the narrator, can gain credence, for the indica...
preview | full record— Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832)
Date: 1776
"Being chosen by Vulcan, Neptune and Minerva, to give his judgment concerning their works, he blamed them all; Neptune for not making his bull with horns before his eyes; Minerva for building a house that could not be removed in case of bad neighbours; and Vulcan for making a man without a window...
preview | full record— Noorthouck, John (1746?-1816)
Date: September 2, 1770 to September 12, 1773; October, 1770 [1777]
"So simple a people I scarce ever saw. They did 'open the window in their breast.' And it was easy to discern, that God was there, filling them with joy and peace in believing."
preview | full record— Wesley, John (1703-1791)