Date: 1727

"'Fear not,' he said, 'Sweet innocence! thou stranger to offence, / And inward storm!'"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"Passes the day illusive, and perplext, / As fleets the Vision o'er the formful Brain, / This Moment hurrying wild the impassion'd Soul, / The next in Nothing lost."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"Effusive Source of Evidence, and Truth! / A Lustre shedding o'er the ennobled Mind, / Stronger than Summer-Noon, and pure as that, / Which gently vibrates on the Eye of Saint, / New to the Dawning of coelestial Day."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"Hence, thro' her nourish'd Powers, enlarged by Thee, / She soaring, spurns, with elevated Pride, / The tangling Mass of Cares, and low Desires, / That bind the fluttering Crowd; and, Angel-wing'd, / The Heights of Science and of Vertue gains, / Where all is calm and bright! with Nature round, / ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"With inflected View, / Thence on th' Ideal Kingdom, swift, she turns / Her Eye; and instant, at her virtual Glance, / Th' obedient Phantoms vanish, and appear, / Compound, divide, and into Order shift, / Each to his rank, from plain Perception up / To Notion quite abstract; where first begins / ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

Men's Reason "tyes them down to Rules," while women, "like Sampson break the trifling Twine and laugh at every Obstacle that would oppose [their] pleasure"

— 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: 1727

Young gentlemen may be "wholly neglected and left to branch forth into numberless Follies, like a rich Field uncultivated, that abounds in nothing but tall Weeds and gaudy scentless Flowers"

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1727

Women have the same "Passions and Inclinations [as Men], which when let loose without a Curb, grow wild and untameable, defy all Laws and Rules, and can be subdued by nothing but what they are seldom Mistresses of"

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1742

"But what hurt her most was, that in reality she had not so entirely conquered her Passion; the little God lay lurking in her Heart, tho' Anger and Disdain so hoodwinked her, that she could not see him"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)