Date: 1754

"I should be ashamed of myself, if I would not acknowledge the merit of Ben Johnson as a writer; but a capacity for writing holds so very low a place in my esteem, when weigh'd in the balance with an honest heart, that with me (and I wish it was the same with every other human creature) it...

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

Date: 1759

"Even this Piece of Wisdom did not find its Way into his Mind by Reflexion (that Passage for its Entrance had long been too closely barricadoed), but came in at his Eyes, and engaged his constant Counsellors, his Inclinations, on the Side of a fair Object he had accidentally beheld, at the House ...

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1759

"But the Nets woven by the human Imagination, altho' they are composed of the smallest Materials, are perhaps full as difficult to be broken as the strongest real Bonds"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1759

"Lady Dellwyn now delighted her Fancy with erecting a Pair of mental Scales; in One Balance placing her own newly-discovered Merits, and in the other all such Virtue as she allowed her Lord to be possessed of."

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1759

"This [her own Mind] being haunted with Ghosts, dejected with an unaccountable Melancholy, and afflicted with a Variety of Distempers, tho' we are at a Loss to discover what Appellation to give them, is very often the Result of nothing more than a strong Imagination unimployed, which could be all...

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1761

"His looks, and the tone of voice with which he spoke this, made my blood run cold, and my heart die within me."

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

Date: 1762

"After rubbing her hands and feet till they were sore, suffocating her with burnt feathers, and half poisoning her with medicines, Sir Charles and her servants so far brought her to life, that after sending her attendants out of the room, she had just power to tell him, 'she had discovered an int...

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

Date: 1762

"An idle mind, like fallow ground, is the soil for every weed to grow in; in it vice strengthens, the seed of every vanity flourishes unmolested and luxuriant; discontent, malignity, ill humour, spread far and wide, and the mind becomes a chaos, which it is beyond human power to call into order a...

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

Date: 1762

"Mad with despair, I have sought all means of obtaining, what I imagined the only cure for my distempered mind."

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

Date: 1762

"I have now my love discharged the burden from my mind."

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