Date: September, 1781
"To think in this manner is to augment our existence, as instead of reckoning a third of our life mere waste, we habituate ourselves to attend to the result of our hours past in Sleep, and to recover out of the mass of thought produced during that period, very often amusement, and sometimes usefu...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1781, second ed. 1787
"They learned that reason only perceives that which it produces after its own design; that it must not be content to follow, as it were, in the leading-strings of nature, but must proceed in advance with principles of judgement according to unvarying laws, and compel nature to reply its questions."
preview | full record— Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)
Date: 1781
"The Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirrour in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1781
"He [Young] plays, indeed, only on the surface of life; he never penetrates the recesses of the mind, and therefore the whole power of his poetry is exhausted by a single perusal; his conceits please only when they surprise."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1781
"Blest be the gracious Power, who taught mankind / To stamp a lasting image of the mind!"
preview | full record— Crabbe, George (1754-1832)
Date: 1782
"'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears, / Our most important are our earliest years. / The mind impressible and soft, with ease / Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees, / And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue /That education gives her, false or true."
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: 1782
"Affliction's iron hand my breast invades, / And Death's dread dart is ever in my sight."
preview | full record— Scott, John, of Amwell (1730-1783)
Date: 1782
"In life's first season, when the fever's flame / Shrunk to deformity his shrivell'd frame, / And turn'd each fairer image in his brain / To blank confusion and her crazy train."
preview | full record— Hayley, William (1745-1820)
Date: 1782
The Muse, like Cato, "Well [...] supplies her want of softer art / By all the sterling treasures of the heart."
preview | full record— Hayley, William (1745-1820)
Date: 1782
"How little hints awak'd the large design, / And subtle Fancy spun her variegated line?"
preview | full record— Hayley, William (1745-1820)