Date: 1733

"Nothing is more void of real improvement and instruction to the mind, and more fulsom, than heaps of quotations, and tedious disquisitions what opinions such and such men were of, in relation to matters properly determinable only by right reason and Scripture."

— Browne, Peter (d. 1735)

Date: 1733

"There St. John mingles with my friendly Bowl, / The Feast of Reason and the Flow of Soul."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1735-6

"See! the full board / That steams disgust, and bowls that give no joy; / No truth invited there, to feed the mind; / Nor wit, the wine-rejoicing reason quaffs."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1742, 1777

"Away then with all those vain pretences of making ourselves happy within ourselves, of feasting on our own thoughts, of being satisfied with the consciousness of well-doing, and of despising all assistance and all supplies from external objects."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1743

"Our needful knowledge, like our needful food, / Unhedged, lies open in life's common field, / And bids all welcome to the vital feast."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Life animal is nurtured by the sun; / Thrives on his bounties, triumphs in his beams. / Life rational subsists on higher food, / Triumphant in His beams who made the day."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Hope, like a cordial, innocent, though strong, / Man's heart at once inspirits and serenes."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"The joys of sense to mental joys are mean: / Sense on the present only feeds; the soul / On past and future forages for joy."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Drink early then, my Friend, at Reason's Bowl, / And fill with wholesome Draughts thy youthful Soul. / If Wine or Gall the Recent Vessel stains, / Each Scent alike the faithful Cask retains."

— Whaley, John (bap. 1710, d. 1745)

Date: 1752

"Learning, he said, had the same Effect on the Mind, that strong Liquors have on the Constitution; both tending to eradicate all our natural Fire and Energy."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)