Date: 1756

"But the Passions which prop these Opinions are withdrawn one after another, and the cool Light of Reason at the Setting of our Life shews us what a false Splendor played upon these Objects during our more sanguine Seasons."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1766

"We talked of the pleasures of temperance, and of the sun-shine in the mind unpolluted with guilt."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1763, 1767

"The guardian genius of his dawning thought, / Who wide disclos'd to wisdom's sacred ray / The eager inlets of his ample mind, / And pour'd upon each opening mental cell, / The virtue-forming scientific beam / With letter'd and religious radiance fill'd, / The fair expanses of his princely soul, ...

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)