Date: 1760-7

"When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,--or, in other words, when his Hobby-Horse grows head-strong,--farewell cool reason and fair discretion!"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court [of Conscience]:--Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;--or was asham'd to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Or, lastly, were we assured, that Interest stood always unconcern'd whilst the cause was hearing,--and that passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounc'd sentence in the stead of reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:--What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things,--that trifles light as air, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it,--that Euclid's de...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1771

"[T]he fumes of faction not only disturb the faculty of reason, but also pervert the organs of sense"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1778, 1779

"As soon would I discuss the effect of sound with the deaf, or the nature of colours with the blind, as aim at illuminating with conviction a mind so warped by prejudice, so much the slave of unruly and illiberal passions."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"[A]cquainted ere you meet that you were to meet him no more, your heart would be all softness and grief, and at the very moment when tenderness should be banished from your intercourse, it would bear down all opposition of judgment, spirit, and dignity: you would hang upon every word, because ev...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1788

"He had been the slave of beauty, the captive of sense; love he ne'er had felt; the mind never rivetted the chain, nor had the purity of it made the body appear lovely in his eyes."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)