Date: 1721, 1722

"Nature, industriously favourable to men, hath not bounded itself in giving desires to men, she was willing that we should have them too, and that we should be the animated instruments of their felicity: she hath put in us the flame of the passions, to make them live easy."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"I think myself almost annihilated; and I do not become sensible of my existence, till a dismal jealousy comes to kindle and produce in my heart, fear, suspicions, hatred and regret."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1725

"Love's an heroick Passion, which can find No room in any base degen'rate Mind: It kindles all the Soul with Honour's Fire, To make the Lover worthy his Desire."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1725

"From that she pass'd to a Description of the Happiness of mutual Affection; -- the unspeakable Extasy of those who meet with equal Ardency; and represented it in Colours so lively, and disclos'd by the Gestures with which her Words were accompany'd, and the Accent of her Voice so true a Feeling ...

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1732

"Distrest by a confused Medley of thinking, she threw herself carelesly on a Couch, where amid a Chaos of Reflection, she slept, if, we can properly be said to sleep, (when the Mind fir'd by warring Passions, dreams 'em o'er again) the Chamber Door had but negligently fell too, for the unthinking...

— Boyd, Elizabeth (fl. 1727-1745)

Date: 1736

"That Ypre, which inspires the Lust of arbitrary Sway, now twisted its envenom'd Tail round the Heart of Eovaai; and, in an instant, erased all the Maxims the wise Eojaeu had endeavoured to establish there: so easy is it for the best Natures to be perverted, when Example rouses up the Sparks of s...

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1736

"She at first excused herself as being no Proficient in the Art; but he would not be denied: and as she could do nothing which had not in it a peculiar Grace, the Sweetness of her Motions, join'd to the Liberties the Example of others seem'd to authorize him to take with her, added new Fires to h...

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"A Narrative which has its Foundation in TRUTH and NATURE; and at the same time that it agreeably entertains, by a Variety of curious and affecting Incidents, is intirely divested of all those Images, which, in too many Pieces calculated for Amusement only, tend to inflame th...

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

Novels and Romances may be "unnaturally inflaming to the Passions, and so full of Love andIntrigue, that hardly any of them but seem'd calculated to fire the Imagination, rather than to inform the Judgment"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741

"But under this macerated form was concealed a mind replete with science, burning with a zeal of benefiting his fellow-creatures, and filled with an honest conscious pride, mixed with a scorn of doing or suffering the least thing beneath the dignity of a philosopher."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)