Date: 1744

"Burn this paper, I conjure you, the moment you have read it; but lay the contents of it up in your heart never to be forgotten."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1744, 1753

"I believe, the Man, who has, with any moderate Degree of Carefulness, examined his own Mind, will not think the Discovery very new, that our Inclinations often stifle and render abortive Images beginning to arise in our Minds, and place others in their room"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1733, 1748

Memory is a "Surprising storehouse! in whose narrow womb / All things, the past, the present, and to come, / Find ample space, and large and mighty room."

— Pilkington, Laetitia (c. 1709-1750)

Date: November 10, 1750

"Is it possible that experience should produce error, and that the exemption of old people from the passions of youth, should be no better a privilege than to leave room for the love of money, which seems then to engross the whole soul, and to fill up the place of all the other passions!"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1754

"If, for instance, a man was to sweat and labour all the days of his life to fill a chest which was already full, the absurdity of his vain endeavour would be glaring: in the same manner, when the human mind is filled and stuffed with notions, brought thither by fallacious inclinations, there is ...

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1758

"But teach me in MYSELF to find / Whate'er can please or fill my mind."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1762

"We might spend our time in going from place to place, where none wish to see us except they find a deficiency at the card table, perpetually living among those, whose vacant minds are ever seeking after pleasures foreign to their own tastes, and pursue joys which vanish as soon as possessed."

— Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720-1795)

Date: 1762

"To me how tasteless ev’ry Scene of Joy, / The vacant Heart by happy Impulse feels / While mine, which Thoughts of genuine Grief employ, / From chearful Crowds to drear Retirement steals."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1767

"The vacancy he found in his heart was insupportable."

— Sheridan [née Chamberlaine], Frances (1724-1766)

Date: 1767

"Whilst he endeavoured to fill up the vacuity he found in his mind, his time was spent at best but in a sort of insipid tranquillity. The voluptuary has no taste for mental pleasures."

— Sheridan [née Chamberlaine], Frances (1724-1766)