Date: 1760-7

"But here, you must distinguish--the thought floated only in Dr. Slop's mind, without sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as your worship knows, are every day swiming quietly in the middle of the thin juice of a man's understanding, without being carried backwards o...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw--and 'tis thou who lifts him up to Heaven--eternal fountain of our feelings!--'tis here I trace thee--and this is thy divinity which stirs within...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1783

"Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart."

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)