Date: August 27, 1751

"She applies by turns to every object, enjoys it for a short time, and flies with equal ardour to another. She delights to catch up loose and unconnected ideas, but starts away from systems and complications which would obstruct the rapidity of her transitions, and detain her long in the same pur...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: August 27, 1751

"When a number of distinct images are collected by these erratick and hasty surveys, the fancy is busied in arranging them; and combines them into pleasing pictures with more resemblance to the realities of life as experience advances, and new observations rectify the former."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: August 27, 1751

"The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: August 27, 1751

"At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new conquests or excursions."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: August 27, 1751

"In like manner the passions usurp the separate command of the successive periods of life."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: October 20, 1752

It is bad manners for Richardson's heroines to "declare all they think [since] fig leaves are necessary for our minds as our bodies."

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1752

"The early days of wedded life / Are oft o'ercast by childish strife; / Then be it your peculiar care / To keep that season bright and fair; / For then's the time by gentle art / To fix your empire in his heart."

— Clark [née Lewis], Esther (bap. 1716, d. 1794)

Date: 1752

"To charm his reason dress your mind, / Till love shall be with friendship joined."

— Clark [née Lewis], Esther (bap. 1716, d. 1794)

Date: 1752

"Should passion e'er his soul deform, / Serenely meet the bursting storm; / Never in wordy war engage, / Nor ever meet his rage with rage. / With all our sex's softening art / Recall the lost reason to his heart; / Thus calm the tempest in his breast, / And sweetly soothe his soul to rest."

— Clark [née Lewis], Esther (bap. 1716, d. 1794)

Date: 1752

"When cares invade your partner's heart, / Bear you a sympathising part, / And kindly claim your share of pain, / And half his troubles still sustain."

— Clark [née Lewis], Esther (bap. 1716, d. 1794)