Date: 1774

"I will study Demosthenes and Cicero, not to discover an old Athenian or Roman custom, nor to puzzle myself with the value of talents, mines, drachms, and sesterces, like the learned blockheads in us; but to observe their choice of words, their harmony of diction, their method, their distribution...

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

Date: 1775

"We do not, indeed, feel our minds impressed with such a tender sensibility towards the latter, as the first."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"The remainder of this speech is worth quoting, both on account of the fine poetical imagery it contains, and in order to shew the strong terror which guilt had impressed on his mind, by his invoking even inanimate matter not to inform against him."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"In the first part of my remark on the second Scene above, I have observed upon the impressions that a disturbed mind is apt to stamp on our dreams and sight."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"In this scenic province of instruction, our representations are much better calculated to answer the end proposed, than those of the Antients were, on account of the different hours of exhibition. Theirs were performed in the morning; which circumstance suffered the salutary effect to be worn ou...

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"To account for the idea of time, it appears to me to be sufficient to attend to a few well known facts, viz. that impressions made by external objects remain a certain space of time in the mind, that this time is different according to the strength, and other circumstances of the impression, and...

— Priestley, Joseph (1733-1804)

Date: 1775

"If I look upon a house, and then shut my eyes, the impression it has made upon my mind does not immediately vanish."

— Priestley, Joseph (1733-1804)

Date: 1776-1789

"But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body of the senate"

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1776-1789

"The wise instructions of Severus never made any lasting impression on the mind of his son, who, although not destitute of imagination and eloquence, was equally devoid of judgment and humanity"

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1776-1789

"The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars occasioned by his death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the house of Severus, had all contributed to increase the dangerous power of the army, and to obliterate the faint image of laws and liberty that was still impressed on the minds...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)