Date: 1734

"I'm in a raging storm, / Where seas and skies are blended, while my soul / Like some light worthless chip of floating cork / Is tost from wave to wave."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1737, 1743

"The best way to prove the clearness of our mind, is by shewing its Faults; as when a Stream discovers the Dirt at the bottom, it convinceth us of the transparency and purity of the Water."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1741

"Whatsoever, saith he, old Time with his huge Drag-Net, has convey'd down to us along the Stream of Ages, whether it be Shells or Shell-Fish, Jewels or Pebbles, Sticks or Straws, Sea-Weeds or Mud, these are the Ancients, these are the Fathers. The Case is much the same with the memorial Possessio...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1742

"'Tis thought's exchange which, like the' alternate push / Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum, / And defecates the student's standing pool."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, / Soon close; where pass'd the shaft, no trace is found. / As from the wing no scar the sky retains, / The parted wave no furrow from the keel, / So dies in human hearts the thought of death."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"His understanding 'scapes the common cloud / Of fumes arising from a boiling breast."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Drink early then, my Friend, at Reason's Bowl, / And fill with wholesome Draughts thy youthful Soul. / If Wine or Gall the Recent Vessel stains, / Each Scent alike the faithful Cask retains."

— Whaley, John (bap. 1710, d. 1745)

Date: w. 1740, 1748

"But when your early Care shall have design'd / To plan the Soul and mould the waxen Mind; / When you shall pour upon his tender Breast / Ideas that must stand an Age's Test, / Oh! there imprint with strongest deepest dye / The lovely form of Goddess LIBERTY!"

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)

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."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, November 17, 1750

"[F]or most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them, roll down any torrent of custom in which they happen to be caught, or bend to any importunity that bears hard against them."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)