Date: 1775

"What fancied zone can circumscribe the Soul, / Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs, / By Reason's light on Resolution's wings, / Spite of her frail / companion, dauntless goes / O'er Libya's deserts and through Zembla's snows? "

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1777

"The philosophical doctrine of the slow recession of bodies from the sun, is a lively image of the reluctance with which we first abandon the light of virtue."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"If I may be allowed to change the allusion so soon, I would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benig...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"When a nation begins to emerge from a state of mental darkness, and to strike out the first rudiments of improvement, it chalks out a few strong but incorrect sketches, gives the rude out-lines of general art, and leaves the filling up to the leisure of happier days, and the refinement of more e...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"Col. Dormer, though he knew the human heart, had never yet thought of taking his nieces in more active scenes of life: he had fallen into the common mistake of people past the meridian of their days, who, feeling tranquillity their greatest good, do not sufficiently reflect that it is insipid at...

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1778, 1779

"As soon would I discuss the effect of sound with the deaf, or the nature of colours with the blind, as aim at illuminating with conviction a mind so warped by prejudice, so much the slave of unruly and illiberal passions."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Once, indeed, I thought there existed another,--who, when time had wintered o'er his locks, would have shone forth among his fellow-creatures, with the same brightness of worth which dignifies my honoured Mr. Villars; a brightness, how superior in value to that which results from mere quickness ...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1779

"His mind / Knowledge illumines, and bright Virtue loves."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1779, 1781

"The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779

"Darting like hidden sun-beams on my mind, / And make it drunk with bliss."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)