Date: 1741

"But such is the nature of the human mind, that it always lays hold on every mind that approaches it; and as it is wonderfully fortified by an unanimity of sentiments, so is it shocked and disturbed by any contrariety."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1746, 1793

"Then, then, exert thy utmost pow'r, / And teach me Being to endure; / Lest reason from the helm should start, / And lawless fury rule my heart; / Lest madness all my soul subdue, / To ask her Maker, What dost thou?"

— Blacklock, Thomas (1721-1791)

Date: 1748

"I now began to look upon myself as a gentleman in reality; learned to dance of a Frenchman whom I had cured of a fashionable distemper; frequented plays during the holidays; became the oracle of an ale-house, where every dispute was referred to my decision; and at length contracted an acquaintan...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1748

"I had made a conquest of her heart, and concluded myself the happiest man alive"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1748, 1754

"How supporting in such a Case, nay how preservative must it be to his Integrity, and what an Antidote against that Gloom and Fretfulness which are apt to invade the Mind in such Circumstances of Trial, to believe that infinite Wisdom and Goodness preside in the Universe."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1751

"In fevers, the sudden failing of the strength and pulse ought, we are told, to be regarded by us as signs of the despairing soul's discontinuing her care of the body, and being soon about to relinquish it: nay, sometimes, like a mean and silly coward, she sinks even under such diseases, as, in t...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

One may make a plan to make a conquest of a heart, which is "not very susceptible of tender impressions; but, on the contrary, fortified with insensibility and prejudice against the charms of the whole sex"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1751

"[H]e could not help gazing at her with desire, and forming the design of making a conquest of her heart"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1751

One may behave with such generosity as to make" an absolute conquest" of a woman's heart

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1751

One may act as if he had "gained an absolute conquest over all the passions of the heart"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)