Date: 1760-7

"You may conjecture upon it, if you please,--and whilst your imagination is in motion, you may encourage it to go on, and discover by what causes and effects in nature it could come to pass, that my uncle Toby got his modesty by the wound he received upon his groin."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"But the word siege, like a talismanic power,' in my father's metaphor, wafting back my uncle Toby's fancy, quick as a note could follow the touch,--he open'd his ears,--and my father observing that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and shuffled his chair nearer the table, as with a desire to pr...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Now it happened then, as indeed it had often done before, that my uncle Toby's fancy, during the time of my father's explanation of Prignitz to him,--having nothing to stay it there, had taken a short flight to the bowling-green;--his body might as well have taken a turn there too,--so that with...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"However, as he knew not what the true cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent, in the situation he was in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a stoick; which, with the help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly accomplished, had his imagination continued ...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:--What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things,--that trifles light as air, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it,--that Euclid's de...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"But here, you must distinguish--the thought floated only in Dr. Slop's mind, without sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as your worship knows, are every day swiming quietly in the middle of the thin juice of a man's understanding, without being carried backwards o...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1761

"Wake my Harp! to melting Measures, / Pour thy softest, sweetest Treasures, / Such as lift the Thoughts on high; / 'Till the rapt Soul, Earth forsaking, / Heaven-ward it's Flight is taking, / On the Wings of Harmony."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"My heart still hovers round those scenes of former happiness with pleasure; and I find satisfaction in enjoying them at this distance, though but in imagination."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"A mind thus sunk for a while below its natural standard, is qualified for stronger flights, as those first retire who would spring forward with greater vigour"

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"We are not to be astonished, says Confucius, 'that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue, than fools in their passage to vice; since passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way.'"

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)