Date: Tuesday, January 22, 1751

"The loose sparkles of thoughtless wit may give new light to the mind, and the gay contention for paradoxical positions rectify the opinions."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: November 1752, 1791

"When up the imperceptible ascent / Of growing years, led by thy hand, I rose, / Perception's gradual light, that ever dawns / Insensibly to day, thou didst vouchsafe, / And teach me by that reason thou inspir'dst."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: Tuesday, March 10, 1752

"It is not sufficient to maintain the first vigour; for excellence loses its effect upon the mind by custom, as light after a time ceases to dazzle."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1752

"On the contrary, when all without looks dark and dismal, there is often a secret Ray of Light within the Mind , which turns every thing to real Joy and Gladness."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1752

"Upon the whole, however, she past a miserable and sleepless Night, her gentle Mind torn and distracted with various and contending Passions, distressed with Doubts, and wandring in a kind of Twilight, which presented her only Objects of different Degrees of Horrour, and where black Despair close...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1753

One may "stoop, with Locke, the Gleams of Thought to scan, / The Infant's dawning Ray, the Noon of Man"

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1755

"Thou sun, of this great world both eye and soul"

— Milton [from Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language]

Date: 1755

Despair may darken the imagination

— Sidney [from Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language]

Date: 1755

"Dim, as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars / To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers, / Is reason to the soul."

— Dryden [from Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language]

Date: 1755

"The sense is like the sun; for the sun seals up the globe of heaven, and opens the globe of earth: so the sense doth obscure heavenly things, and reveals earthly things"

— Bacon [from Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language]