Date: 1760-7

"But the heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain,--the soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deli...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1761

"Abashed and confounded to find my humanity so far debased; to see myself fallen so low from that innate greatness of mind, to which our passion had reciprocally elevated us, I return home at night, with a heart swelling, yet vacant as a ball puffed up with air; sickened with disgust, and sunk in...

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)

Date: 1761

"Every thing he sees, every thing he hears, catches his attention, and is stored up in his memory: he keeps a journal of the actions and conversation of men, and from every scene that presents itself, deduces something to enrich his memory."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)

Date: 1762

"We might spend our time in going from place to place, where none wish to see us except they find a deficiency at the card table, perpetually living among those, whose vacant minds are ever seeking after pleasures foreign to their own tastes, and pursue joys which vanish as soon as possessed."

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

Date: 1766

"I have ever perceived, that where the mind was capacious, the affections were good."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1767

"The vacancy he found in his heart was insupportable."

— Sheridan [née Chamberlaine], Frances (1724-1766)

Date: 1767

"Whilst he endeavoured to fill up the vacuity he found in his mind, his time was spent at best but in a sort of insipid tranquillity. The voluptuary has no taste for mental pleasures."

— Sheridan [née Chamberlaine], Frances (1724-1766)

Date: 1768

"No doubt the ocean fills the mind with vast ideas."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1770-1

"By this time the choleric vapours, which madam had jogged downwards when she let her broad bottom salute the chair with such a whack, growing warm amongst the hodg-potch they found in her store-room, which we may properly stile a hot-house, began to ascend, and take possession of their former te...

— Bridges, Thomas (b. 1710?, d. in or after 1775)

Date: 1771

"A small stock of ideas is more easily managed, and sooner displayed than a great quantity crowded together."

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)