Date: 1753

"Exert then the whole force of your reason to curb the incroachments of lawless passion in your own heart"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1753

"A young amorous heart, I think, may with some analogy be compared to tinder, as it is ready to take fire from every spark that falls"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1753

"Though the soul, like a hermit in his cell, sits quiet in the bosom, unruffled by any tempest of its own, it suffers from the rude blasts of others faults"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1753

"[M]ight I not hope my love, my truth, my perseverance, would in time find some room in a corner of that heart which doubtless then would have exterminated its first ideas.'"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: Tuesday, March 20, 1753

"[I]t is to be regretted, therefore, that he did not exercise his mind less, and his body more: since by this means, it is highly probable, that though he would not then have astonished with the blaze of a comet, he would yet have shone with the permanent radiance of a fixed star."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, August 14, 1753

"But from the opposite errour, from torpid despondency, can come no advantage; it is the frost of the soul, which binds up all its powers, and congeals life in perpetual sterility."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, August 28, 1753

"To understand the works of celebrated authors, to comprehend their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a task more than equal to common intellects; and he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle, who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge, and can detail it occasionally to other...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, October 2, 1753

"It has been discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, that the distinct and primogenial colours are only seven; but every eye can witness, that from various mixtures, in various proportions, infinite diversifications of tints may be produced. In like manner, the passions of the mind, which put the world i...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1753

"Tho' this letter was somewhat shorter than those she usually wrote to him, yet the few lines it contain'd discovered, without her designing to do so, such a well establish'd fund of tenderness in her soul, as cannot but be discernable to every understanding reader."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: April 10, 1753

"The same contrariety of impulse may be perhaps discovered in the motions of men: we are formed for society, not for combination; we are equally unqualified to live in a close connection with our fellow beings, and in total separation from them: we are attracted towards each other by general symp...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)