Date: 1760-7
"When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,--or, in other words, when his Hobby-Horse grows head-strong,--farewell cool reason and fair discretion!"
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1760-7
"Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court [of Conscience]:--Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;--or was asham'd to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment?"
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1760-7
"Or, lastly, were we assured, that Interest stood always unconcern'd whilst the cause was hearing,--and that passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounc'd sentence in the stead of reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case."
preview | full record— 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...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1762, 1781
"Delusion o'er my Mind usurps Command, / And rules each Sense with Fancy's magic Wand."
preview | full record— Keate, George (1729-1797)
Date: 1762-3
"By tyrants awed, who never find / The passage to their people's mind; / To whom the joy was never known / Of planting in the heart their throne."
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: 1762-3
"The senses all must homage pay; / Hither they all must tribute bring, / And prostrate fall before their king."
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: 1762-3
"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: 1768
"In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)