Date: 1779

"Sorrow may well possess the mind / That feeds where thorns and thistles grow"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: November 9, 1779

"Thus, conscience freed from ev'ry clog, / Mahometans eat up the hog."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: December 10, 1778; 1779

"Novelty makes a more forcible impression on the mind, than can be done by representation of what we have often seen before; and contrasts rouse the power of comparison by opposition."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1778; 1779

"Where all is novelty, the attention, the exercise of the mind is too violent."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1772-1781, 1781

"But, if thy faint springs / Refuse this large supply, steel thy firm soul / With stoic pride"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1781

The "passive mind" may be (merely) impressed by substances and modes

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1781

"Oh, I begin to take you--your days--the rusticated remains of a ruined Temple Critic--a smatterer of high life from the scenes of Cibber, which remain upon his imagination, as they do upon the stage, forty years after the real characters are lost"

— Burgoyne, John (1722-1792)

Date: December, 1781; 1835

"Smooth, ductile, and even, [the poet's] fancy must flow, / Must tinkle and glitter like gold to the sight / And catch in its progress a sensible glow."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

"'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears, / Our most important are our earliest years. / The mind impressible and soft, with ease / Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees, / And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue /That education gives her, false or true."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

The mind may be "unfurnish'd" and listless

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)