Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"His boasted reason seems only to light him astray, and brutal instinct more regularly points out the path to happiness."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"Where, I again repeat it, is human reason! not only some men, but whole nations, seem divested of its illumination."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"Reason cannot resolve. It lends a ray to shew the horrors of my prison, but not a light to guide me to escape them."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1662, 1762

"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind; having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart."

— The Church of England

Date: 1765

"Modern philosophers give them other fine names and Julius Scaliger, in particular, used to call them "seeds of eternity" and also "zopyra"--meaning living fires or flashes of light hidden inside us but made visible by stimulation of the senses, as sparks can be struck by steel."

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Date: 1765

"Imagination is a Ray of Divinity, the Senses contribute nothing to its Operation; it does all, has all within itself, nor can even Reason either add or diminish its Power."

— Anonymous

Date: 1766

"The 'wise' man, makes use of those means, that are most proper for his purpose; he conducts himself, by the light of reason."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: 1766

"'Infatuation' acts so strongly, as in some measure, to take away that reason, which is the light of the mind; and thus darkening it, leads a man into the grossest errors."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: 1767

"This difference must certainly proceed from the transforming power of Imagination, whose rays illuminate the objects we contemplate; and which, without the lustre shed on them by this faculty, would appear unornamented and undistinguished."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Or, to set the difference betwixt philosophic and poetic Imagination in another light by the use of an image, we may observe, that in the mind of the Philosopher the RAYS of fancy are more COLLECTED, and more CONCENTRATED in one point; and consequently are more favourable to ACCURATE and DISTINC...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)