Date: Published serially, 1765-1770

"O, my Fanny, he cried, my most noble, my adorable Creature! what a Combat have you fought, what a Conquest have you gained, of Grace over Nature, of Virtue against Passion!"

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1766

"Love laugh'd, and, sure of conquest, wing'd a dart / Unerring, to her undefended heart."

— Cunningham, John (1729-1773)

Date: 1768

"I was never able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively, as by beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and gentle sensation, to fight it upon its own ground."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1774

"As in madness, the senses, from struggling with the imagination, are at length forced to submit, so, in sleep, they seem for a while soothed into the like submission: the smallest violence exerted upon any one of them, however, rouzes all the rest in their mutual defence; and the imagination, th...

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1785

"To Younge, where the smile-stealing comic we find, / With the soft, the sublime, and the graceful combin'd. / To Younge who can each diff'rent passion impart, / Who pleases the judgement, but conquers the heart, / And guided by Nature, is followed by Art."

— MacNally, Leonard (1752-1820)

Date: 1792

One can "wage war" on his own heart and "conquer it, or perish"

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1792

"O, the fell conflict, the intestine strife, / This clash of good and evil, death and life! / What, what are all the wars of sea and wind, / Or wreck of matter, to This War of Mind?"

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)