Date: 1764

"To this cabinet volition, or will, has a key; so when an arduous subject occurs, I unlock my bureau, pull out the particular drawer, and am supply'd with what I want in an instant."

— Foote, Samuel (1720-1777)

Date: 1767, 1784

"Shall we, because we strive in vain to tell / How Matter acts on incorporeal Mind, / Or how, when sleep has lock'd up ev'ry sense, / Or fevers rage, Imagination paints / Unreal scenes, reject what sober sense, / And calmest thought attest?"

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1773

"Sincere Devotion needs no outward shrine: / The Centre of an humble Soul is Thine."

— Byrom, John (1692-1763)

Date: 1774

"Let me, therfore, most earnestly recommend to you, to hoard up, while you can, a great stock of knowledge; for though, during the dissipation of your youth, you may not have occasion to spend much of it; yet, you may depend upon it, that a time will come, when you will want it to maintain you. P...

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1777

"Good sense is a judicious mechanic, who can produce beauty and convenience out of suitable means; but Genius (I speak with reverence of the immeasurable distance) bears some remote resemblance to the divine architect, who produced perfection of beauty without any visible materials, 'who spake, a...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: [1782]

"I must now further observe to you, that the Brain is also the Seat or Residence of the MIND or SOUL of the Animal.--That it is the Grand Emporium of all Intelligence, and of all Ideas and Species of external Objects presented there by the Nerves."

— Martin, Benjamin (bap. 1705, d. 1782)

Date: 1782

"The life I led at the cottage was the life of a savage; no intercourse with society, no consolation from books; my mind locked up, every source dried of intellectual delight, and no enjoyment in my power but from sleep and from food."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"Have you shewn a jewel / Out of the cabinet of your rich mind / To lock it up again?"

— Dudley, Sir Henry Bate (1745-1824)

Date: 1785

"Oft as I trod my native wilds alone, / Strong gusts of thought would rise, but rise to die; / The portals of the swelling soul ne'er oped / By liberal converse, rude ideas strove / Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785-7, 1791, 1792

"Thus a large dumpling to its cell confin'd / (A very apt allusion to my mind)."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)