Date: 1667

"A Soul self-mov'd which can dilate, contract, / Pierces and judges things unseen: / But this gross heap of Matter cannot act, / Unless impulsed from within."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1686

"Change did I say, that word I must forbear, / No, she bright Star wont wander from her sphere / Of Virtue (in which Female Souls do move) / Nor will she joyn with an insatiate love."

— Egerton [née Fyge; other married name Field], Sarah (1670-1723)

Date: 1703

"Gold is a sure Bait to gain him, no other Loadstone can attrack his iron heart, 'tis proof against the force of Beauty, else I should not need this Stratagem, for Nature has not prov'd a Nigard to my Daughter."

— Centlivre [née Freeman; other married name Carroll], Susanna (bap. 1669?, d. 1723)

Date: 1719-1720, 1725

"But when he consider'd how much he had struggled, and how far he had been from being able to repel Desire, he began to wonder that it cou'd ever enter into his Thoughts, that there was even a Possibility for Woman, so much stronger in her Fancy, and weaker in her Judgment, to suppress the Influe...

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

Date: 1763

"The heart of a woman does, I imagine, naturally gravitate towards a handsome, well-dressed, well-bred fellow, without enquiry into his mental qualities."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1777

"The philosophical doctrine of the slow recession of bodies from the sun, is a lively image of the reluctance with which we first abandon the light of virtue."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"For it is in moral as in natural things, the motion in minds as well as bodies is accelerated by a nearer approach to the centre to which they are tending."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"The vast conceptions which enable a true genius to ascend the sublimest heights, may be so connected with the stronger passions, as to give it a natural tendency to fly off from the strait line of regularity; till good sense, acting on the fancy, makes it gravitate powerfully towards that virtue...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Far be it from me," said Lord Orville, "to dispute the magnetic power of beauty, which irresistibly draws and attracts whatever has soul and sympathy."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1786

"'Remember,' concluded he, 'that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air.'"

— Piozzi, [née Salusbury; other married name Thrale] Hester Lynch (1741-1821)