Date: 1768

"Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature, took the alarm, as I stated the proposition."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1770

"Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, / The soul adopts and owns their firstborn sway; / Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, / Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1772

"Not so blithe Corin, in his humble Cell, / Within his Bosom kinder Tenants dwell; / And though no Locks, or massy Bolts, secure / The slight Obstruction of his simple Door; / He sleeps at Ease, secure in Heaven's good Care, / Reckless of Villains, and exempt from Fear."

— Whyte, Samuel (1733-1811)

Date: 1772

"My Bosom is to Fear a Stranger; / The Prize is more enhanc'd by Danger"

— Whyte, Samuel (1733-1811)

Date: 1774

"The pupil of impulse, it [his heart] forced him along, / His conduct still right, with his argument wrong; / Still aiming at honour, yet fearing to roam, / The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1774

"Reason, therefore, at once gives judgment upon the cause; and the vagrant intruder, imagination, is imprisoned, or banished from the mind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1774

"Our eyes shew us that the prospect is not present; our hearing, and our touch, depose against its reality; and our taste and smelling are equally vigilant in detecting the impostor."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1774

"But in sleep it is otherwise; having, as much as possible, put our senses from their duty, having closed the eyes from seeing, and the ears, taste, and smelling, from their peculiar functions, and having diminished even the touch itself, by all the arts of softness, the imagination is then left ...

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1774

"As in madness, the senses, from struggling with the imagination, are at length forced to submit, so, in sleep, they seem for a while soothed into the like submission: the smallest violence exerted upon any one of them, however, rouzes all the rest in their mutual defence; and the imagination, th...

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1775

"An evil conscience is a shrew, and gives most shocking curtain lectures."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)