Date: 1748

"Yet were the jarring passions tuned, / The soil from thorns and thistles clear, / Some latent virtue might appear."

— Leapor, Mary (1722-1746)

Date: 1748

"But how will this dismantled soul appear,/ When stripped of all it lately held so dear,/ Forced from its prison of expiring clay, / Afraid and shivering at the doubtful way?"

— Leapor, Mary (1722-1746)

Date: 1747-8

"Riches were, are, and always will be, his predominant passion."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"My predominant passion is Girl, not Gold; nor value I This, but as it helps me to That, and gives me independence."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"But let me touch upon thy predominant passion, Revenge; for Love [What can be the love of a rake?] is but second to that, as I have often told thee, tho' it has set thee into raving at me."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"But by the fierceness of mine, as my trembling hands seized hers, I soon made fear her predominant passion."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"How difficult does every man find it, as well as me, to forego a predominant passion? I have three passions that sway me by turns; all imperial ones. Love, Revenge, Ambition, or a desire of conquest."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"See that your own predominant passions, whatever they be, hurry you not into as much wickedness, as mine do me."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"O Jack! what a difficulty must a man be allowed to have, to conquer a predominant passion, be it what it will, when the gratifying of it is in his power, however wrong he knows it to be to resolve to gratify it!"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"Reflect upon this; and then wilt thou be able to account for, if not to excuse, a projected crime, which has habit to plead for it, in a breast as stormy, as uncontroulable!"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)