Date: 1759

"The man who eludes our most innocent questions, who gives no satisfaction to our most inoffensive inquiries, who plainly wraps himself up in impenetrable obscurity, seems, as it were, to build a wall about his breast."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1764

Perception is "a kind of drama, wherein some things are performed behind the scenes, others are represented to the mind in different scenes, one succeeding the another"

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1782

"We now perceive every [idea], as it passes, through a small aperture separately, as in the camera obscura, and this we call time; but at the conclusion of this state we may probably exist in a manner quite different; the window may be thrown open, the whole prospect appear at one view, and all t...

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)

Date: 1785

"He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that sh...

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1790

"If it is excessive, I will go to a house from whence no tyrant can remove me. I keep in mind always that the door is open, that I can walk out when I please, and retire to that hospitable house which is at all times open to all the world; for beyond my undermost garment, beyond my body, no man l...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1900

"Jealous for thy authority in thy mansion-house and outward family, but not in the least for thy authority within, in thy chiefest mansion, thy principal economy? Are the servants here to talk high and in what tone they please? Must theirs be the last word, their dictates the rules of action? O s...

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)