Date: 1768

"Maria, tho' not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine forms--affliction had touch'd her looks with something that was scarce earthly--still she was feminine--and so much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could the traces be ever wor...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw--and 'tis thou who lifts him up to Heaven--eternal fountain of our feelings!--'tis here I trace thee--and this is thy divinity which stirs within...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would have me sit down at the table; my heart was sat down the moment I enter'd the room; so I sat down at once like a son of the family."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: w. 1943, 1944

"The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only be reading old books."

— Lewis, C. S. (1898-1963)

Date: w. 1702-1713, published 1989

"At modern Rome an easy Nymph was bred / In tender tales & soft Romances read / These on the brain a wild impression brought / & made her sure she saw what ere she thought."

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)