Date: 1774

"Opinion, reflecting the Stoick within himself, surrounds his heart with ice, prevents it from palpitating with joy amidst pleasures, from being moved to pity at the hearing of doleful cries, from shaking for fear among dangers; it concenters all his passions in pride, and, confirming him in his ...

— Marat, Jean-Paul (1743-1793)

Date: 1774

"A parcel of warm hearts and inexperienced heads, heated by convivial mirth, and possibly a little too much wine, vow, and really mean at the time, eternal friendships to each other, and indiscreetly pour out their whole souls in common, and without the least reserve."

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

Date: 1776-1789

"The influence of a polite age and the labour of an attentive education had never been able to infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning"

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1777

"For I never will believe that envy, though passed through all the moral strainers, can be refined into a virtuous emulation, or lying improved into an agreeable turn for innocent invention."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1780

"For such men the city alone is the proper habitation; where every street and market-place is full of enjoyments; there pleasure enters in at every gate: through the eye, the ear, the taste, the smell; through every part and every sense she gains admittance, and not a path remains that is not wid...

— Francklin, Thomas (1721–1784); Lucian (b.c. 125, d. after 180)

Date: 1782

"I should suppose kindness would do any thing with them;--my soul melts at kindness."

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"Such a research would richly pay us--for the end would be conviction--so much on the side of miraculous mercy--such an unanswerable proof of the superintendency of Divine Providence, as would effectually cure us of rash despondency--and melt our hearts--with devotional aspirations--till we poure...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: April, 1783

"And we must be content to rest upon the surface without straining to pierce into causes which are hidden from us, and which have hitherto mocked the attempts of impatient philosophers. We should resolve to wait till a longer fathom line is granted us, and then we shall be able to sound depths wh...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1783

"Some, indeed, there are, who, by a strength and dignity in their conceptions, and a current of high ideas that runs through their whole composition, preserve the reader's mind always in a tone nearly allied to the Sublime; for which reason they may, in a limited sense, merit the name of continue...

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

Date: 1783

"[W]hat Horace observes of words is equally true of thoughts ... every superfluity is lost, like water poured into a vessel already full."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)