Date: w. 1795
We may "exert over our own heart a virtuous despotism, and lead our own Passions in triumph"
preview | full record— Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)
Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)
"The dissipation of Blandford, and the disputes of Portsmouth, consumed the hours which were not employed in the field; and amid the perpetual hurry of an inn, a barrack, or a guard-room, all literary ideas were banished from my mind."
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1796
"A fine country, and diversified views, may soften even the keenest affliction of decided misfortune, and tranquilise the most gloomy sadness into resignation and composure; but suspense rejects the gentle palliative; 'tis an absorbent of the faculties that suffers them to see, hear, and feel onl...
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1796
"Her person charmed his eye, but his own imagination framed her mind, and while his enchanted faculties were the mere slaves of her beauty, they persuaded themselves they were vanquished by every other perfection."
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)
"But Nature had designed him to think as he pleased, and to speak as he thought: his piety was offended by the excessive worship of creatures; and the study of physics convinced him of the impossibility of transubstantiation, which is abundantly refuted by the testimony of our senses."
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1798
"Women have a frame of body more delicate and susceptible of impression than men, and, in proportion as they receive a less intellectual education, are more unreservedly under the empire of feeling."
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)
Date: 1798
"Wounded affection, wounded pride, all those principles which hold absolute empire in the purest and loftiest minds, urged her to still further experiments to recover her influence, and to a still more poignant desparation, long after reason would have directed her to desist, and resolutely call ...
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)
Date: 1798
"But a connection more memorable originated about this time, between Mary and a person of her own sex, for whom she contracted a friendship so fervent, as for years to have constituted the ruling passion of her mind."
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)
Date: 1817
"Ah! when will the yoke of Custom--Custom, the blind tyrant, of which all the other tyrants make their slave--ah! when will that misery-perpetuating yoke be shaken off?--when, when will Reason be seated on her throne?"
preview | full record— Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832)
Date: 1817
"Let us cross-examine Hartley's scheme under the guidance of this distinction; and we shall discover, that contemporaneity, (Leibnitz's Lex Continui) is the limit and condition of the laws of mind, itself being rather a law of matter, at least of phaenomena considered as material. At the utmost, ...
preview | full record— Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)