Date: 1752

"His Hope revives, fresh Courage steels his Heart."

— Browne, Moses (1706-1787)

Date: January 28, 1753

"I have heard that his understanding was rather hurt by the absolute retirement in which he lived, and indeed he had an imagination too lively to be trusted to itself; the treasures of it were inexhaustible, but for want of commerce with mankind he made that rich oar into bright but useless medal...

— Montagu [née Robinson], Elizabeth (1718-1800)

Date: 1757

"But when it is such a truth, as I do not only hear, but feel; and it comes home to my own very sense and experience: shall any sophistical reasonings wrangle me out of it; what though I cannot resolve the question, [GREEK CHARACTERS] whence the evil was derived: whether from the soul formed in t...

— Jenks, Benjamin (bap. 1648, d. 1724)

Date: 1757

"And whatever any talk of (the rasa tabula,) an indifferency by nature, to virtue or vice: never could I find any such thing; but all men inclined the wrong way: and abundance of work, by discipline, and the grace of God, to make any one better than the rest."

— Jenks, Benjamin (bap. 1648, d. 1724)

Date: 1760

"With how quick a succession, do days, months and years pass over our heads? -- how truly like a shadow that departeth do they flee away insensibly, and scarce leave an impression with us?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--tra...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy blow he had sustain'd from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckon'd upon in his mind, and register'd down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case Bobby should fail him."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out of this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose up in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an uneasy journey of it down."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"[A]nd what is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon Crackenthorp or Burgersdicius, or any Dutch logician or commentator."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"[A]nd this kind of modesty so possess'd him, and it arose to such a height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be, even the modesty of a woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much the awe of ours."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)