Date: November 10, 1783

"He gives, what bankrupt Nature never can, / Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man, / Gold, purer far than Ophir ever knew, / A soul, an image of himself, and therefore true."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1783

"In lucent words my darkling verses dight, / And wash my earthy mind in thy clear streams,"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1783

"O sheathe their hearts with triple steel, that they / May emulate their fathers' virtues"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1784

"No, Edwitha--you have a native dignity of mind incapable of degradation or alloy."

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1784

" I am form'd horribly robust, as thou art, without a grain of sensibility--a heart of stone, and nerves of cast iron"

— Andrews, Miles Peter (1742-1814)

Date: 1784

"Pistols prim'd and carbines loaded, / Courage strikes on hearts of steel"

— O'Keeffe, John (1747-1833)

Date: 1785

"Thus rust the Mind's best powers."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

"Even if, by a special disfavor of fortune or by the niggardly provision of a stepmotherly nature, this will should wholly lack the capacity to carry out its purpose--if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing and only the good will were left (not, of course, as a mere wish but as...

— Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)

Date: 1785

Wisdom is a pearl "with most success / Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

The mind may be "polish'd"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)