Date: December 1790

"A few fundamental truths meet the first enquiry of reason, and appear as clear to an unwarped mind, as that air and bread are necessary to enable the body to fulfil its vital functions; but the opinions which men discuss with so much heat must be simplified and brought back to first principles; ...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"Perhaps the most improving exercise of the mind, confining the argument to the enlargement of the understanding, is the restless enquiries that hover on the boundary, or stretch over the dark abyss of uncertainty."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: February 1791

"The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1792

"Yet disappointed as we are, in our researches, the mind gains strength by the exercise, sufficient, perhaps, to comprehend the answers which, in another step of existence, it may receive to the anxious questions it asked, when the understanding with feeble wing was fluttering round the visible e...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1792

"Yet, when I exclaim against novels, I mean when contrasted with those works which exercise the understanding and regulate the imagination."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1792

"Another philosopher following the analogy of nature, observes, that as all mens faces are different, we may well suppose their minds to be so likewise."

— Gilpin, William (1724-1804)

Date: 1793

"The tendency of all false systems of political institution is to render the mind lethargic and torpid."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"But it is certain that truth is adequate to awaken the mind without the aid of adversity"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"For that purpose, thoroughly understand it yourself, impregnate your mind with its evidence, and speak from the clearness of your view, and the fulness of conviction."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"It is not to the sound of intellectual health that the remedy so urgently addresses itself, as to those who are infected with diseases of the mind. "

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)