Date: 1774

"I will study Demosthenes and Cicero, not to discover an old Athenian or Roman custom, nor to puzzle myself with the value of talents, mines, drachms, and sesterces, like the learned blockheads in us; but to observe their choice of words, their harmony of diction, their method, their distribution...

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

Date: w. October 27, 1777, printed 1788

"In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: April 5, 1781, 1788

"Cultivated ground has few weeds; a mind occupied by lawful business, has little room for useless regret."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)