Date: 1760-1761, 1762
"It's unquiet waves were of the darkest hue, and gave a lively representation of the various agitations of the human mind."
preview | full record— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)
Date: 1771
"He thinks nothing more absurd than the common notion of Instruction, as if Science were to be poured into the Mind, like water into a cistern, that passively waits to receive all that comes."
preview | full record— Harris, James (1709-1780)
Date: December 10, 1774; 1775
"The fire of the artist's own genius operating upon these materials which have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new combinations, perhaps, superior to what had ever before been in the possession of the Art. / / As in the mixture of the variety of metals, which are said to h...
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: December 10, 1774; 1775
"Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of Art, he is possessed of that-presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from every school; selects both from what is great, and what is little; brings home knowledge from the East and from the West; making the universe tributary towards fu...
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
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."
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Date: 1790
"Their view calls off his attention from his own view; and his breast is, in some measure, becalmed the moment they come into his presence. This effect is produced instantaneously and, as it were, mechanically; but, with a weak man, it is not of long continuance."
preview | full record— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)
Date: w. 1821, 1840
"It is as it were the interpretation of a diviner nature through our own; but its footsteps are like those of a wind over the sea, which the coming calm erases, and whose traces remain only as on the wrinkled sand which paves it."
preview | full record— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)