18th-century Author Quotes

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

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!

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

Samuel Parr
Samuel Parr
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
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.

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.

That thorny path, those stormy skies, have drawn our spirits nearer; and rendered us, by sorrow's ties, each to the other dearer.

Bernard Barton
Bernard Barton
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.

James Holman
James Holman
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.

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
Judith Sargent Murray
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.

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
Catharine Sedgwick
Tis emblematic, the rose of youth and health soon fades when watered by the tear of affliction.

Susanna Rowson
Susanna Rowson
It was a day of gloom, and strange suspense,
And feverish, and inexplicable dread,
In Herculaneum's walls. The heavy, thick,
And torrid atmosphere; the solid, vast,
And strong—edg'd clouds, that through the firmament
In various and opposing courses moved:—
The wild scream of the solitary bird
That, at long intervals, flew terror-driven
On high:—the howling of the red-ey'd dog
As he gaz'd trembling on the angry heavens:-
The hollow moans that swept along the air,
Though every wind was lock'd,-portended all
That nature with some dire event was big,
And labour'd in its birth.

Hard is the task, O Queen! that you impose,
To tear my bosom with reviving woes.

There are some secrets which scarcely admit of being disclosed even to ourselves.

The progress of the American Revolution has been so rapid and such the alteration of manners, the blending of characters, and the new train of ideas that almost universally prevail, that the principles which animated to the noblest exertions have been nearly annihilated.

Mercy Otis Warren
Mercy Otis Warren
How happily, how happily, the flowers die away!
Oh! Could we but return to earth as easily as they.

In following their line through, and those of Plantagenet and Tudor, there is but little to soothe the mind.

I assure you my professions never go beyond my intentions...

Elizabeth Inchbald
Elizabeth Inchbald
Well, but the joy to see my works in print!
Myself too pictur'd in a mezzo-tint!

We are better deceived by having some truth told us than none.