Date: 1774

"Many people lose a great deal of time by reading: for they read frivolous and idle books, such as the absurd romances of the two last centuries; where characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed, and sentiments that were never felt, pompously described: the Oriental ravings and extra...

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

Date: December 10, 1776; 1777

"The natural appetite or taste of the human mind is for Truth; whether that truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of the several parts of a...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1781

"The mother loveth her little child; she bringeth it up on her knees; she nourisheth its body with food; she feedeth its mind with knowledge."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1782

"Had they mingled in the world, fed high their fancy with hope, and looked forward with expectation of enjoyment; had they been courted by the great, and offered with profusion adulation for their abilities, yet, even when starving, been offered nothing else!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"Cheer up, my child of discretion--and comfort you self that every day will bring the endearing moment of meeting, so much nearer--chew the cud upon rapture in reversion--and indulge your fancy with the sweet food of intellectual endearments;--paint in your imagination the thousand graces of your...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"There is something so amazingly grand--so stupendously affecting--in the contemplating the works of the Divine Architect, either in the moral, or the intellectual world, that I think one may rightly call it the cordial of the soul--it is the physic of the mind--and the best antidote against weak...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"I have heard it more than once observed of fortunate adventurers--they have come home enriched in purse--but wretchedly barren in intellects--the mind, my dear Jack, wants food--as well as the stomach--why then should not one wish to increase in knowledge as well as money?"

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: December 10, 1784; 1785

"The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an Artist is found in the great works of his predecessors."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1787

"But her idleness led her into an error; for her mind, though inclined to laziness, sought for a more solid, and more active food."

— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)

Date: 1787

"It is often a trifle; a little crumb; but it is those little crumbs that we must not suffer to accumulate till the next day."

— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)