Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"Invention is one of the great marks of genius; but if we consult experience, we shall find, that it is by being conversant with the inventions of others, that we learn to invent; as by reading the thoughts of others we learn to think."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1775

"Intellect, as has he [Aristotle] had said before, was in CAPACITY, after a certain manner, the several Objects intelligible; but was in ACTUALITY no one of them, until it first comprehended it--and that it was the same with the Mind or HUMAN UNDERSTANDIN...

— Harris, James (1709-1780)

Date: 1782

Books may adorn one's "intellects as well as shelves"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

A people may receive the "transcript of the eternal mind"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

One may have a mind "Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind, / But now and then perhaps a feeble ray /Of distant wisdom shoots across his way."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: w. 1782-3, 1801

Love's laws may be "written in the mind"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1783

"A maxim, or moral saying, properly enough receives this form; both because it is supposed to be the fruit of meditation, and because it is designed to be engraven on the memory, which recalls it more easily by the help of such contrasted expressions."

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

Date: 1788

"Well-tutor'd Learning, from his books / Dismiss'd with grave, not haughty looks, / Their order on his shelves exact, / Not more harmonious or compact / Than that, to which he keeps confined / The various treasures of his mind."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)