Date: 1660, 1676
"Conscience is the brightness and splendor of the eternal light, a spotless mirror of the Divine Majesty, and the Image of the goodness of God."
preview | full record— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)
Date: 1682
"The one 'tis true is wholly void of Reason, but it is also an equivalent Darkness of Mind, that possesses the other."
preview | full record— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)
Date: 1698
"All Divine Truth is of one of these two Emanations:--Either it flows from God, in the first Instant and Moment of God's Creation; and then it is the Light of that Candle which God set up in Man, to light him; and that which by this Light he may discover, are all the Instances of Morality; of goo...
preview | full record— Whichcote, Benjamin (1609-1683)
Date: Tuesday, June 26 1750
"Yet as the errours and follies of a great genius are seldom without some radiations of understanding, by which meaner minds may be enlightened, the incitements to pleasure are, in those authors, generally mingled with such reflections upon life, as well deserve to be considered distinctly from t...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Tuesday, March 27, 1750
"The task of an author is, either to teach what is not known, or to recommend known truths by his manner of adorning them; either to let new light in upon the mind, and open new scenes to the prospect, or to vary the dress and situation of common objects, so as to give them fresh grace and more p...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Tuesday, July 3, 1750
"hey are then at the uttermost verge of wickedness, and may die without having that light rekindled in their minds, which their own pride and contumacy have extinguished."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Tuesday, October 2, 1750
"[T]hough I do not pretend to give laws to the legislators of mankind, or to limit the range of those powerful minds that carry light and heat through all the regions of knowledge, yet I have long thought, that the greatest part of those who lose themselves in studies by which I have not found th...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, April 14, 1750
"[W]e are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude; but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favour, and reason by degrees submits to absurdity,...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, November 9, 1751
"But it is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation; and that the powers of the mind, when they are unbound and expanded by the sunshine of felicity, more frequently luxuriate into follies, than blossom into goodness."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: November 15, 1751
"My life was divided between the care of providing topicks for the entertainment of my company, and that of collecting company worthy to be entertained; for I soon found, that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressi...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)