Date: 1732

"Malice, and Lust, voracious Birds of Prey, / That out-soar Reason, and our Wishes sway; / Desires' wild Seas, on which the wise are tost, / By Pilot Indolence, are safely crost."

— Mitchell, Joseph (c. 1684-1738)

Date: 1733

The "fond Breast" may be populated by "jealous Demons"

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1746

Imagination may "Bring what ideas she can find / To the great storehouse of the Mind, / Where Judgement ever sits serene, / To rule the vague and sportive queen"

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)

Date: 1754

"If I cannot, draw out Cacus from his Den; I may pluck the Villain from my own Breast. I cannot cleanse the Stables of Augeas; but I may cleanse my own Heart from Filth and Impurity: I may demolish the Hydra of Vices within me; and should be careful too, that while I lop off ...

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

Date: 1754

"And let every deformed Person comfort himself with reflecting; that tho' his Soul hath not the most convenient and beautiful Apartment, yet that it is habitable: that the Accommodation will serve in an Inn upon the Road: that he is but Tenant for Life, or (more properly) at Will: and that, while...

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

Date: 1759

"These natural pangs of an afrighted conscience are the daemons, the avenging furies which in this life haunt the guilty, which allow them neither quiet nor repose, which often drive them to despair and distraction, from which no assurance of secrecy can protect them, from which no principles of ...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"The different passions and appetites, the natural subjects of this ruling principle, but which are so apt to rebel against their master, he reduced to two different classes or orders."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"This order of passions, according to this system, was of a more generous and noble nature than the other. They were considered upon many occasions as the auxiliaries of reason, to check and restrain the inferior and brutal appetites. We are often angry at ourselves, it was observed, we often bec...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"They forget, for a time, their infirmities, and abandon themselves to those agreeable ideas and emotions to which they have long been strangers, but which, when the presence of so much happiness recalls them to their breast, take their place there, like old acquaintance, from whom they are sorry...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1760-7

"Thus conscience, this once able monitor,--placed on high as a judge within us, and intended by our Maker as a just and equitable one too,--by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such imperfect cognizance of what passes,--does its office so negligently,--sometimes so corruptly...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)