Date: 1761

"It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impluses of self-love."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1766

"Faction's torch of sulphurous gleam / Shall fire the heart that feels not Fancy's beam."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1769

"The first reverend sage who delivered himself on this mysterious subject, having stroked his grey beard, and hemmed thrice with great solemnity, declared that the soul was an animal; a second pronounced it to be the number three, or proportion; a third contended for the number seven, or harmony;...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1770

"The captious turn of an habitual wrangler deadens the understanding, sours the temper, and hardens the heart: by rendering the mind suspicious, and attentive to trifles, it weakens the sagacity of instinct, and extinguishes the fire of imagination; it transforms conversation into, a state of war...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"Pursue, poor imp, th' imaginary charm, / Indulge gay Hope, and Fancy's pleasing fire: / Fancy and Hope too soon shall of themselves expire."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"To the pure soul by Fancy's fire refined, / Ah what is mirth but turbulence unholy, / When with the charm compared of heavenly melancholy!"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"The gloomy race / 'By Indolence and moping Fancy bred, / 'Fear, Discontent, Solicitude give place, / 'And Hope and Courage brighten in their stead, / 'While on the kindling soul her vital beams are shed."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"But She, who set on fire his infant heart, / And all his dreams, and all his wanderings shared / And bless'd, the Muse, and her celestial art, / Still claim th' Enthusiast's fond and first regard."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1773

"But his temper was not altogether of that fiery kind, which some young men, so circumstanced, and so educated, are possessed of."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1774

"When an ingenious track of thinking presents itself, though but casually, to true genius, occupied it may be with something else, imagination darts alongst it with great rapidity; and by this rapidity its ardor is more inflamed. The velocity of its motion sets it on fire, like a chariot wheel wh...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)