Date: 1764

"Have I well weigh'd the great, the noble part / I'm now to play? have I explored my heart, / That labyrinth of fraud, that deep, dark cell, / Where, unsuspected, e'en by me, may dwell / Ten thousand follies?"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1764

"[I]n his breast, / Crowded with follies, Honour found no room"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1765

"O God, to what a pitch are wrought / The councils of omniscient thought."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1768

"Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature, took the alarm, as I stated the proposition."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1769

"The first moment I saw Colonel Rivers convinced me my heart had till then been a stranger to true tenderness"

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1774

"I find by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united; and when the one suffers, the other sympathizes."

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1774

"Voltaire must be criticised; besides, every man's favorite is attacked: for every prejudice is exposed, and our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded."

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1777, 1793

"And what a crowd of wild ideas press / Distracting on the soul!"

— Dodd, William (1729-1777)

Date: 1777

"His heart, for a moment, revolted at the idea of seduction; but he soon silenced the unwelcome monitor."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1781

"Mind, like a bride from a nobler family, enriches matter by its union, and brings as a dower, possessions before unknown. Henceforth matter appears cloathed in a gayer and richer garment; and the fruits of this union are a new progeny, to which matter, confining its alliance to its own family, c...

— Rotheram, John (1725–1789)