moon_shadow

If Comets be burnt, consumed and wasted in the Starrie
Heavens, it seemeth that there is no great difference between
them and things here below.
J.SWAN, Speculum Mundi, or A Glass
Reprsenting the Face of the World(1635)

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characterisics
of a vigorous intellect.
SAMUEL JOHNSON, in The Rambler(1751)

What female heart can gold despise?
THOMAS GRAY, "Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat
Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes"(1747)

In a strange way
To stand inquiring right, is not to stray;
To sleep, or run wrong, is.
JOHN DONNE, "Satire III"(c.1593-7)

For, methinks, the understanding is not much unlike a closet
wholly shut from light, with only some little openings left, to
let in external visible resemblances, or Ideas of things with-
out.
JOHN LOCKE, An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding(1690)

Now sunk the Sun, now twilight sunk, and Night
Rode in her Zenith; nor a passing breeze
Sighed to the groves, which in the midnight air
Stood motionless.
JOHN BROWN, "Rhapsody"(1776)

The human mind delights in extending ans expanding its
knowledge.
BISHOP BERKELEY,"De Motu"(1721)

Let us trust to nothing but God and ourselves; for I repeat it
again and again, there is nothing else left on which we can
rely with safety.
MAJOR CALVERT, on the defeat of
the British army in Holland, 1795

My good stars, that were my former giudes,
Have empty left their orbs, and shot their fires
Into the abysm of Hell.
SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra,
III:XIII(circa1606-7)

'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply and all relation.
JOHN DONNE, "An Anatomy of the World," from
The First Anniversarie(1611)

The charm dissolves; the aerial music's past;
The banquet ceass, and the vision flies.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE,"ElegyXI"(1747)