Date: 1725

"Cousin, said she, you have very much surpriz'd me with what you have said, I thought I shou'd have been very secure from the Importunities of Love, while I was with you, since you have always express'd the greatest dislike to it; but I flatter myself, that all you have said, has been only to try...

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1727

Women have the strength to subdue that reason "which conquers the Lords of Creation" and "like Sampson break the trifling Twine and laugh at every Obstacle that would oppose [their] pleasure"

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: March 24, 1729

"The Fish in Innocence secure, / Once tempted by the Bait; / Pursues and snaps the treach'rous Lure, / And meets her certain Fate: / So Virgins when to Love betray'd, / Indulge the pleasing Pain; / The Passion does each Sense invade, / They ne'er are free again."

— Coffey, Charles (d. 1745)

Date: 1739

"How looks the Wretch / Whose Heart cries Villain to itself? I'll not / Endure its Batt'ry."

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1752

"Assist me, Furies, with your hellish Aid, / Nor let the Tyrant Conscience more invade; / Since I am stain'd with Blood, thro' Blood I'll wade."

— Gentleman, Francis (1728-1784)

Date: Saturday, Aug. 3, 1754; 1756

"When I mention Figures, I must observe, that Men of critical Knowledge have justly distinguished between Figures of Speech, and Figures of the Sentiment; the former including Metaphor and all Translations of Phrases, and the latter consisting of such Breaks and Transitions in Discourse, as the M...

— Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805)

Date: 1755

"Yet you disdain the meaner arts / By women us'd to conquer hearts."

— Derrick, Samuel (1724-1769)

Date: 1756

"They have inlisted Reason to fight against itself, and employ it's whole Force to prove that it is an insufficient Guide to them in the Conduct of their Lives."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1756

"Not only their Understandings labour continually, which is the severest Labour, but their Hearts are torn by the worst, most troublesome, and insatiable of all Passions, by Avarice, by Ambition, by Fear and Jealousy. No part of the Mind has Rest. Power gradually extirpates from the Mind every hu...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1756

"What a rough war contending Passion keeps! / Now the storm's up; now, hah! by Heav'n he weeps."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)