Date: 1691

"So innocent is the Soul of Kainophilus, so like fair white Paper, wherein you may presently see the least blot or speck of dirt that happens to fall upon it."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"But though there is nothing in this Book I have cudgel'd my Brains about, yet I must confess, during my Prenticeship, I was a kind of Persecutor of Nature, and would fain then have chang'd the dull Lead of my Brain into finer Mettal."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"How wind ye my Hearts of Gold?"

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"As for the Loves of these Villagers, the Intriegues of their Amours are not a little remarkable, they being very pretty Animals when disguis'd with that Passion: They are Tinder to such Flames, being quickly set on fire, even by the least spark, which when it hath catch'd the Match of their Soul...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"Sometimes he describ'd the Humors of the Greenwich Usurers, who, as he exprest it, had Hearts of Marble and Entrals of Brass."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1708

"For Folly has over-whelmed them, and, what they have sought after, has covered their Hearts like Rust; God has sealed up their Hearts and their Ears, and their Eyes are dim, and they shall have sore Punishment."

— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)

Date: 1759

"Their grief, however, like their joy, was transient; every thing floated in their mind unconnected with the past or future, so that one desire easily gave way to another, as a second stone cast into the water effaces and confounds the circles of the first."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1760-7

"Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their own weight."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"There was the great king Aldrovandus, and Bosphorus, and Capadocius, and Dardanus, and Pontus, and Asius,--to say nothing of the iron-hearted Charles the XIIth, whom the Countess of K***** herself could make nothing of"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1762

"He therefore had been little used to any woman but his sober and sensible grand-mother's two cousins who were pretty enough, but had no great charms of understanding; a sister rather silly, and the incomparable Harriot, whose wit was as sound as her judgment solid and sterling, free from affecta...

— Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720-1795)