Date: 1771

It "is curious to observe how the nature of truth may be changed by the garb it wears; softened to the admonition of friendship, or soured into the severity of reproof: yet this severity may be useful to some tempers; it somewhat resembles a file; disagreeable in its operation, but hard metals ma...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: w. 1767, dated 1773 [unpublished in period]

"To show that all inferences of reason are false or uncertain, and that the understanding acting alone does entirely subvert itself, and prove by argument that by argument nothing can be proved, he has contrived a puppet of mushrooms, cork, cobwebs, gossamer, and other fungous and flimsy material...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1773

"The passions which thou didst implant in me, that reason which should balance them, is unable to withstand"

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1773

"Zounds! Sir, can you give any relief to a soul that is haunted by Furies?"

— Graves, Richard (1715-1804)

Date: 1773

"The remembrance of my infant days, like the fancied vibration of pleasant sounds in the ear, was still alive in my mind; and I flew to find out the marks by which even inanimate things were to be known, as the friends of my youth, not forgotten, though long unseen, nor lessened, in my estimation...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1773

"Unfortunately the young man had acquired a certain train of ideas which were totally averse to that line of life his father had marked out for him."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1773

"Nor was her mind ill suited to this 'Index of the soul.'"

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1773

"It is not by the roar of riot, or the shout of the bacchanal, that we are to measure the degree of pleasure which he feels; the grossness of the sense he gratifies is equally insusceptible of the enjoyment, as it is deaf to the voice of reason; and, obdurated by the repetition of debauch, is inc...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1773

"They who are really skilful in the principles of science, will acquire the veneration only of shallow minds by talking scientifically; for, to simplify expression, is always the effect of the deepest knowlege, and of the clearest discernment. On the other hand, there may be many who possess tast...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1773

"There is another at hand, which the substitution of this phantom too often destroys--it is Conscience--whose voice, were it not stifled (sometimes by this very false and spurious Honour ) would lead directly to that liberal construction of the rules of morality which is here contended for."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)