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)

Date: 1788

"Of home! dear scene, whose ties can bind / With sacred force the human mind / That feels each little absence pain, / And lives but to return again / To that lov'd spot, however far, / Points, like the needle to its star; / That native shed which first we knew, / Where first the sweet affections ...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1788

"True courage in the unconquer'd soul / Yields to Compassion's mild controul; / As, the resisting frame of steel / The magnet's secret force can feel."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"If her heart was not quite at peace, its exquisite sensibility was corrected by the influence of reason; as the quivering needle, though subject to some variations, still tends to one fixed point."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1791, 1794

"The name, like a sudden spark of electric fire, seemed for a moment to suspend his faculties--for a moment he was transfixed; but recovering, he caught Belcour's hand, and cried--'Stop! stop! I beseech you, name not the lovely Julia and the wretched Montraville in the same breath."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)