Date: 1718

"By this strong Party lurking in your Heart, / Reason seduc'd, will to her Side desert."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"Mankind, from the eldest ages, have felt great disturbance in themselves, from a vehement and constant strife between their reason and their passions; they found themselves distracted by these inward warring principles, of which they were compounded, drawing different ways, and contending for vi...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"When they followed the dictates for reason, they bore the torment of ungratify'd inordinate appetites; and when they chose to obey their passions, reflection fill'd them with terror and remorse: and in this sense, it is true, that all men are born in a state of war; that is, they felt in themsel...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

" But the immediate disciples of these two great masters were much divided about reconciling the two combatants, reason and passion, and bring this intestine war to an end."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Can Kings the Empire of the Soul invade?"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723, 1740

"A Heart by Kindness only gain'd, / Will a dear Conquest prove"

— Sheffield, John, first duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647-1721)

Date: 1749

Nature "corresponding with her sweet assailant," may invade "in the heart of [a woman's] capital," and carry it by storm, while she lays "at the mercy of the proud conqueror, who had made his entry triumphantly, and completely"

— Cleland, John (bap. 1710, d. 1789)

Date: Saturday, July 7, 1750

"I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned, that the one can bear all that can be inflicted on the other, whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be separated sooner than subdued."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750

"When we have heated our zeal in a cause, and elated our confidence with success, we are naturally inclined to persue the same train of reasoning, to establish some collateral truth, to remove some adjacent difficulty, and to take in the whole comprehension of our system. As a prince in the ardou...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750

"The philosophers having found an easy victory over those desires which we produce in ourselves, and which terminate in some imaginary state of happiness unknown and unattainable, proceeded to make further inroads upon the heart, and attacked at last our senses and our instincts."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)