18th-century Author Quotes

How little do they know human nature, who think they can say no to passion, so far shalt thou go, and no farther!

The only impregnable citadel of virtue is religion; for there is no bulwark of mere morality, which some temptation may not overtop or undermine, and destroy.

When in company with literary women, make no allusions to 'learned ladies,' or 'blue stockings,' or express surprise that they should have any knowledge of housewifery, or needle-work, or dress; or that they are able to talk on 'common things.' It is rude and foolish and shows that you really know nothing about them, either as a class or as individuals.

The ordinary manner of spending their time, is the only way of judging of people's inclination and genius.

Celestial sounds have sometimes been heard on earth.

Taste is, in general, considered as that faculty of the human mind by which we perceive and enjoy whatever is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature or art.

Archibald Alison

He is the happiest who renders the greatest number happy.

Joseph-François-Édouard de Corsembleu

Mirror, mirror, here I stand. Who is the fairest in the land?

Yes, I'm in love, I feel it now And Caelia has undone me; And yet I swear I can't tell how The pleasing plague stole on me.

William Whitehead

Real misery delights not in reproaches and complaints. It is like charity and love - silent, long suffering and mild.

Lady Caroline Lamb

This piercing cold I feel:
my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom
under my heel...

Admonition never sinks so deeply on the heart as in the hour of trial; young, amiable as you are, life teems, I doubt not, with various blessings for you--blessings which you will know how to value properly, for early disappointment is the nurse of wisdom.

Regina Maria Roche

Nothing is small or great in God's sight. Whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly trifling; and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.

Alas! Am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil and pain!

George Moses Horton

None but the estimable shall hear from me that I esteem them. The whole world is entitled to my courtesy, but greater tribute than that must be earned through virtuous acts.

Sophie von La Roche

To find by experience that friendships are mortal, is the hard but inevitable lot of fallible and imperfect men.

Women, rouse yourselves! The tocsin of reason resounds through the whole universe: recognize your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudices, fanaticism, superstition and lies.

Olympe de Gouges

Coercive measures may have a restraining effect for a time, but can never subdue an untractable spirit: it is only by engaging the affections and enlarging the understanding, that the heart can be meliorated or principles be formed; for like a bow forcibly bent, the mind recoils from oppression with elastic power.

Let brisker youths their active nerves prepare
Fit their light silken wings and skim the buxom air.

Richard Owen Cambridge

The direct object of geology is, to unfold the solid substance of the earth — to discover by what causes its several parts have been either arranged or disorganized — and from what operations have originated the general stratification of its materials, the inequalities of its surface, and the vast variety of bodies that enter into its make.

John Mason Good

I wonder if Eve could write letters in Paradise! But, poor Eve, she had no one to write to - no one to whom to tell what Eden was, no beloved child to whom her love traveled through any or all space. Poor Eve!

Catharine Sedgwick

Nothing can be more contrary to nature, to reason, to religion, than cruelty; hence as inhuman man is generally considered as a monster; such monsters, however, have existed; and the heart almost bleeds at the recital of the cruel acts such have been guilty of; it teaches us, however, what human nature is when left to itself; not only treacherous, but desperately wicked.

Charles Buck (minister)

A Universalist, your heart cannot but dilate, and your affections widen, until the divine expansion, like the ambient atmosphere, embraces every form, which is acted upon by an immortal spirit.

Judith Sargent Murray

In books I converse with men, in the Bible I converse with God.

William Romaine

The passion for travelling is, I believe, instinctive in some natures. We have seen men persevere in their enterprises against the most formidable obstacles; and, without means or friends, and even ignorant of the languages of the various countries through which they passed, pursue their perilous journeys into remote places, until, like the knight in the Arabian tale, they succeeded in snatching a memorial from every shrine they visited.