Date: 1747-8

"Because a woman's heart may be at one time adamant, at another wax."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1752

"His Mind was formed of those firm Materials, of which Nature formerly hammered out the Stoic, and upon which the Sorrows of no Man living could make an Impression. "

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1754

"In the first place, we must offer him the tribute of our gold, as to our true King; that is, we must daily present him with our souls, stampt with his own image, and burnished with divine love."

— Challoner, Richard (1691-1781)

Date: 1761

"Soon as the guilty passion is allay'd, / The green and morbid colour of our souls / Is chang'd to virgin white; a gentle breeze / Of pity springs within us."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"He will pick up from dunghills what by a nice chymistry, passing through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold; and, under the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even sublime inventions."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1780

"My Potter stamp on me thy clay, Thy only stamp of love!"

— Wesley, John (1703-1791)

Date: 1782

The Muse, like Cato, "Well [...] supplies her want of softer art / By all the sterling treasures of the heart."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"So poignant a mind in a vulgariz'd shell,/ Resembles a bucket of gold in a well; / 'Tis like Ceylon's best spice in a rude-fashion'd jar, / Or Comedy coop'd in a Dutch man of war."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: 1790

"Vain are a man's titles--vain his wealth--vain his pursuits of pleasure--the guilty mind has no enjoyment--neither rank nor riches can steel the breast against the stings of conscience."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: 1794, 1797

"If you have reduced me to the necessity of again debating the same painful and gloomy question, if you cannot give that elasticity to my mind which will animate it to despise difficulty and steel it against injustice, however good your intentions may have been, I fear you have but imposed misery...

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)