Date: 1764
"And by the way, according to the all-wise appointment of Providence, it is the same with the human mind, as it is with the earth; for education and good agriculture make the like improvements upon either."
preview | full record— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)
Date: 1766
"It requires but little, to awaken a passion, which is not, entirely, rooted out from the heart."
preview | full record— Trusler, John (1735-1820)
Date: 1771
"The growth of knowledge" resembles "the growth of fruit," as it is "the internal vigour, and virtue of the tree that must ripen the juices to their just maturity"
preview | full record— Harris, James (1709-1780)
Date: December 10, 1774; 1775
"The mind is but a barren soil; is a soil soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilised and enriched with foreign matter."
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: 1776-1789
"The ancient families of Rome had successively fallen beneath the tyranny of the Cæsars; and, whilst those princes were shackled by the forms of a commonwealth, and disappointed by the repeated failure of their posterity, it was impossible that any idea of hereditary succession should have ...
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1779, 1781
"A memory admitting some things and rejecting others, an intellectual digestion that concocted the pulp of learning, but refused the husks, had the appearance of an instinctive elegance, of a particular provision made by Nature for literary politeness."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1781
"In his 'Night Thoughts' he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1779, 1781
"Pope foresaw the future efflorescence of imagery then budding in his mind, and resolved to spare no art or industry of cultivation."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1784, 1804
"When this is the case the hedge (to our feelings) is broken down, and we lie exposed to every temptation; as says the Psalmist--'Why hast thou broken down her hedges, so that all they that pass by the way do pluck her?' Psal. lxxx. 12"
preview | full record— Huntington, William (1745-1813)
Date: April 5, 1781, 1788
"Cultivated ground has few weeds; a mind occupied by lawful business, has little room for useless regret."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)