1794

The most perfect of all works of art is true political freedom.

1794 · Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, England

Blake's Urizen leans out of the sun with a golden compass to measure the void, and Blake was not sure whether to admire him.

★ 7.2

Treatise · Philosophical literature

Friedrich Schiller

1794

★ 7.0

Nonfiction · Philosophy

On the Aesthetic Education of Man

Friedrich Schiller

1794 · 224 pages

Watching the French Revolution collapse into terror, Schiller concluded that reason cannot free people whose feelings stay uneducated. Beauty does it, through play, and Romanticism built its case for art on that claim.

★ 6.2

The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell · 1794

★ 5.5

For every thing that lives is Holy.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell · 1794

★ 5.5

I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow.

Songs of Experience · 1794

★ 5.5

Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.

Songs of Experience · 1794

★ 5.5

Pamphlet · Religious literature · Philosophical literature

The church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.

The Age of Reason · 1794

★ 5.4

Pamphlet · Religious literature · Philosophical literature

Would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the comencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament which the Great First Cause endured with animality... And thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!

The Age of Reason · 1794

★ 5.4

Scientific literature

Erasmus Darwin

Zoonomia · 1794

★ 5.1

Pamphlet · Religious literature · Philosophical literature

It is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

The Age of Reason · 1794

★ 4.5

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

Any system of religion that has any thing in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell · 1794

★ 3.9

Pamphlet · Religious literature · Philosophical literature

The Age of Reason · 1794

★ 3.8

Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.

There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, — the Law of Nature and of Nations.

Songs of Experience · 1794

★ 3.8

Speech · Political speech

Edmund Burke

1794

★ 3.5

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell · 1794

★ 2.1

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?

Songs of Experience · 1794

★ 2.0

Little Fly, Thy summer's play My thoughtless hand Has brushed away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And drink and sing, Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing.

Songs of Experience · 1794

★ 2.0

The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. The last of the goat is the bounty of God. The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God. The nakedness of woman is the work of God.