Date: 1790

"She was a woman of infinite art, devoted to pleasure, and of an unconquerable spirit."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1790

"A variety of strong and contending emotions struggled at her breast, and suppressed the power of utterance."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1790

"Alas! when an impassioned mind, wounded by indifference, attempts recrimination, it is like a naked and bleeding Indian attacking a man arrayed in complete armour, whose fortified bosom no stroke can penetrate, while every blow which indignant anguish rashly aims, recoils on the unguarded heart."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1794

"O Emily! these are moments, in which joy and grief struggle so powerfully for pre-eminence, that the heart can scarcely support the contest!"

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1794

"One of those instantaneous and unaccountable convictions, which sometimes conquer even strong minds, impressed her with its horror."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1814

"The mind which does not struggle against itself under one circumstance, would find objects to distract it in the other, I believe; and the influence of the place and of example may often rouse better feelings than are begun with."

— Austen, Jane (1775-1817)

Date: 1816

"It darted through her, with the speed of an arrow, that Mr Knightley must marry no one but herself!"

— Austen, Jane (1775-1817)

Date: 1860

"There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to have made a tragedy, if tragedies were made by passion only, but the essential ti megethos which was present in the passion, was wanting to the action; the utmost Maggie could do, with a fierce thrust of her small brown arm, was to pu...

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"While Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows for ever rising again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling with more substantial obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"What you call self-conquest -- blinding and deafening yourself to all but one train of impressions, is only the culture of monomania in a nature like yours."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)