Date: 1719

"There are some secret moving Springs in the Affections, which when they are set a going by some Object in View, or be it some Object, though not in View, yet render'd present to the Mind by the Power of Imagination, that Motion carries out the Soul by its Impetuosity to such violent eager Embrac...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1722

"There is nothing so absurd, so surfeiting, so ridiculous as a Man heated by Wine in his Head, and a wicked Gust in his Inclination together; he is in the possession of two Devils at once, and can no more govern himself by his Reason than a Mill can Grind without Water."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1747-8

"She set even my heart into a palpitation--Thump, thump, thump, like a precipitated pendulum in a clock-case"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"So now, Belford, as thou hast said, I am a machine at last, and no free agent."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1949

"And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp."

— Orwell, George (1903-1950)

Date: 1992

"If he was essentially a thinking machine, then he needed to be serviced."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"If your mind works like a cash register, anything you come up with is bound to be cheap"

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Only this violence could break open a world constrained by the hidden cameras of conscience and vanity."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2000

"This lonely organ, which has appeared to be imprisoned in the skull, tormenting intellectuals throughout history,' said Jean-Paul merrily, 'may after all be a transceiver, tuning into various types of extraphysical mind, and contributing to them with its own broadcasts.'"

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)