Date: 1757

"The term Taste, like all other figurative terms, is not extremely accurate: the thing which we understand by it, is far from a simple and determinate idea in the minds of most men, and it is therefore liable to uncertainty and confusion."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1757

"They who have not taken these methods, if their Taste decides quickly, it is always uncertainly; and their quickness is owing to their presumption and rashness, and not to any sudden irradiation that in a moment dispels all darkness from their minds."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1760

"Whenever this shall be executed, it is to be looked upon as the work of true genius; but when fallen short of, as often happens, it is to be deemed the impotent effort of the hard-bound brains of low plagiaries, whose memory is filled with the shreds and ill-chosen scraps of other mens wit."

— Macklin, Charles (1697-1797)

Date: 1760

"Squire Groome is no national characteristic of England, but a general representative of any person of the three kingdoms, who likes horse-racing, drinking, &c. preferably to any other happiness; but why he should be the type of the English nation, I cannot see, and therefore leave it to the very...

— Macklin, Charles (1697-1797)

Date: 1760

"With how quick a succession, do days, months and years pass over our heads? -- how truly like a shadow that departeth do they flee away insensibly, and scarce leave an impression with us?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1762

"Is the beauty of truth, or moral actions, or the deformity of falsehood, or vice, capable of being represented on paper, or on any other plain, except the rasa tabula of the mind?"

— Griffith, Richard (d. 1788)

Date: April, 1762

"The metaphor is a shorter simile, or rather a kind of magical coat, by which the same idea assumes a thousand different appearances."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"We should feel sorrow, says he, but not sink under its oppression; the heart of a wise man should resemble a mirrour, which reflects every object without being sullied by any."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"Oh thou possessor of heavenly wisdom, would be this separation, this immeasurable distance from my friends, were I not able thus to delineate my heart upon paper, and to send thee daily a map of my mind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"His boasted reason seems only to light him astray, and brutal instinct more regularly points out the path to happiness."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)