Date: 1761

"Let us wait for the opening of reason; it is that which displays the character, and gives it its true form: it is by that also it is cultivated, and there is no such thing as education before the understanding is ripe for instruction."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)

Date: 1761

"The mind becomes heavy and dull by inaction. The seed takes no root in a soil badly prepared, and it is a strange manner of preparing children to become reasonable, by beginning to make them stupid."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"The duty of children to their parents, a duty which nature implants in every breast, forms the strength of that government which has subsisted for time immemorial."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"A mind rightly instituted in the school of philosophy, acquires at once the stability of the oak, and the flexibility of the osier."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: January 1762

"Richardson sème dans les cœurs des germes de vertu qui y restent d’abord oisifs et tranquilles: ils y sont secrètement, jusqu’à ce qu’il se présente une occasion qui les remue et les fasse éclore. [Richardson sows in our hearts the seeds of virtue which at first remain still and inactive: their ...

— Diderot, Denis (1713-1784)

Date: 1764

"Like such a garden, when the human soul, / Uncultured, wild, impatient of control, / Brings forth those passions of luxuriant race, /Which spread, and stifle every herb of grace

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1764

Virtue may wither on the bed she was born until Philosophy steps in and "clears the encumbered land" and "roots up every weed"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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."

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1765 [1764]

"The friar, who knew nothing of the youth but what he had learnt occasionally from the princess, ignorant of what became of him, and not sufficiently reflecting on the impetuosity of Manfred's temper, conceived that it might not be amiss to sow the seeds of jealousy in his mind."

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

Date: 1765

"Reason in the bosom pours, / Its growth improves, its fruit matures, / Each counsel of the human brain / Weighs in his scale, and stamps it vain?"

— Merrick, James (1720-1769)