Date: 1760-1761, 1762
"I must own, by this time I began myself to suspect the fidelity of my mirror; for as the ladies appeared at least to have the merit of rising early, since they were up at five, I was amazed to find nothing of this good quality pictured upon their minds in the reflection; I was resolved therefore...
preview | full record— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)
Date: 1764
"Such principles are parts of our constitution, no less than the power of thinking: reason can neither make nor destroy them; nor can it do any thing without them: it is like a telescope, which may help a man to see farther, who hath eyes; but without eyes, a telescope shows nothing at all."
preview | full record— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)
Date: w. October 27, 1777, printed 1788
"In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: w. 1821, 1840
Poetry "reproduces the common universe of which we are portions and percipients, and it purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being."
preview | full record— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)
Date: January, 1884
"But as the distribution of brain-tension shifts from one relative state of equilibrium to another, like the aurora borealis or the gyrations of a kaleidoscope, now rapid and now slow, is it likely that the brain's faithful psychic concomitant is heavier-footed than itself, that its rate of chang...
preview | full record— James, William (1842-1910)