Date: w. 1741

"While breath shall animate this frail machine, / My heart sincere, which never flatt'ry knew, / Shall consecrate its warmest wish to you."

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

Date: 1750

"or, as a certain very eminent Author well observes, Fools having generally stronger Nerves, and less volatile Spirits, than Men of fine Understandings, that which will rouse the one, will make the other either stupid or frantick; and tho' it sometimes, while the Fit continues, strengthens the Im...

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

Date: 1750

"For then, tho' I cannot give you my Heart, I shall have given you a Title to it, and you will have a lawful Claim to its Allegiance"

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

Date: November 10, 1750

"Is it possible that experience should produce error, and that the exemption of old people from the passions of youth, should be no better a privilege than to leave room for the love of money, which seems then to engross the whole soul, and to fill up the place of all the other passions!"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: November 10, 1750

"Does the soul (one would be almost tempted to ask) contract and shrivel up with old age, like the body?"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: November 10, 1750

"Is it that a long commerce with the world does indeed corrupt the heart; and extinguish by degrees those sparks of light, those inclinations to good, which were implanted in our minds?"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: November 10, 1750

"Or is it rather to be attributed to the seeds of original evil, which grow with our years, and overspread the whole soul?"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1751

"All the senses, like the family at Harlowe-Place, in a confederacy against that which would animate, and give honour to the whole, were it allowed its proper precedence"

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

Date: 1751

"The eye, my dear, the wicked eye--has such a strict alliance with the heart--And both have such enmity to the judgment!"

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

Date: 1751

Clarissa, if any "woman ever could, would have given a glorious instance of a passion conquered, or at least kept under, by Reason, and by Piety"

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