Date: 1776-1789
"The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated."
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1776-1789
"The casual disputes that so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations"
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: December 10, 1776; 1777
"But I am persuaded, that scarce a poet is to be found, from Homer down to Dryden, who preserved a sound mind in a sound body, and continued practising his profession to the very last, whose later works are not as replete with the fire of imagination, as those which were produced in...
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: 1785
"It were to be wished, therefore, that every part of a liturgy were personally applicable to every individual in the congregation; and that nothing were introduced to interrupt the passion, or damp the flame, which it is not easy to rekindle."
preview | full record— Paley, William (1743-1805)
Date: 1786
"You confound their abilities by the severity of their servitude: for as a spark of fire, if crushed by too great a weight of incumbent fuel, cannot be blown into a flame, but suddenly expires, so the human mind, if depressed by rigorous servitude, cannot be excited to a display of those facultie...
preview | full record— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)
Date: 1786
"If at this recital his indignation should arise, let him consider it as the genuine production of nature; that she recoiled at the horrid thought, and that she applied instantly a torch to his breast to kindle his resentment."
preview | full record— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)
Date: December 11, 1786; 1787
"Because these Arts, in their highest province, are not addressed to the gross senses, but to the desires of the mind, to that spark of divinity which we have within, impatient of being circumscribed and pent up by the world which is about us."
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)