Date: 1754

"If we consider these ideas like foundations, they are extremely narrow, and shallow, neither reaching to many things, nor laid deep in the nature of any."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1754

"If we consider them like materials, for so they may be considered likewise, employed to raise the fabric of our intellectual system, they will appear like mud, and straw, and lath, materials fit to erect some frail, and homely cottage, but not of substance, nor value sufficient for the construct...

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1754

"The mind of man does often what princes and states have done. It gives a currency to brass and copper coined in the several philosophical and theological mints, and raises the value of gold and silver above that of their true standard."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1754

"Bred to think as well as speak by rote, they furnish their minds, as they furnish their houses or cloath their bodies, with the fancies of other men, and according to the mode of the age and country."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1774

"Let me, therfore, most earnestly recommend to you, to hoard up, while you can, a great stock of knowledge; for though, during the dissipation of your youth, you may not have occasion to spend much of it; yet, you may depend upon it, that a time will come, when you will want it to maintain you. P...

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1777

"My pineal gland could you but view, / You'd scarce believe your eyes see true: / There's such a jumble; good and bad, / All sorts of thoughts, may there be had; / Like broker's shop, where we may find / Goods that belong to half mankind."

— Savage, Mary (fl. 1763-1777)

Date: 1777

"Thus oft, from shop of brain, I try / To throw the dirt and rubbish by; / But still they gain their former state, / Or leave a vacuum in the pate."

— Savage, Mary (fl. 1763-1777)

Date: 1782

"Some philosopher--I forget who--wished for a window in his breast--that the world might see his heart;--he could only be a great fool, or a very good man:--I will believe the latter, and recommend him to your imitation."

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"Oh nature!--oh heart!--why does the voice of distress so forcibly knock at the door of hearts?"

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"I will aim at both sides of him--his pity and his pride--which, alas!--the last I mean, finds a first-floor in the breast of every son of Adam."

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)