Date: 1697

"If we shou'd observe Pythagoras his Rule, to call our selves to an account every Evening, for the Actions and Thoughts of that Day, I believe we shou'd find many vacant spaces within the compass of a Day, which we cou'd not fill up with Thoughts."

— Burnet, Thomas (c.1635-1715)

Date: July 23, 1703; 1714

"Time, I daily find, blots out apace the little Stock of my Mind, and has disabled me from furnishing all that I would willingly contribute to the Memory of that Learned Man.."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1733-1735

"Various rude Arts the untaught Ancients knew / To fix Ideas e'er they fled away, / And Images of Thought to Sight convey. / Brass, Wax, or Wood the Characters retain'd, / Some liv'd on Slates, and some the Canvas stain'd; / Some trac'd in Iv'ry, or engrav'd on Stone, / Or sunk in Clay, e're Bi...

— Bowden, Samuel (fl. 1733-1761)

Date: 1736, 1743

In youth "Fancy's mimick Pow'r is warm and strong, / Engraving deeply, and retaining long"

— Wesley, Samuel, the Younger (1691-1739)

Date: 1751

The hand one writes may be "like her mind, solid and above all flourish"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: January 3, 1750-51, 1807

"Live then upon the paper, and upon my memory, every stroke of his pen! For there is no gall in his ink, but only precious balm, and honied drops of salutary counsel."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1751

"I proceeded therefore--That I loved Familiar-letter-writing, as I had more than once told her, above all the species of writing: It was writing from the heart (without the fetters prescribed by method or study) as the very word 'Cor-respondence' implied"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1752, 1790

"The yielding paper's pure, but vacant breast, / By her fair hand and flowing pen imprest, / At ev'ry touch more animated grows."

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)

Date: [1753] 1754

"Despairing of success with you, he has assumed airs of bravery; but your name is written in large letters in his heart."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1754

"The character he has given you, Sir, is stamped in your countenance"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)