Date: Published serially, 1765-1770

"Thoughts of God and a Saviour would come into my Mind, and the pious Impressions of my Infancy would return upon me; but I did my best to banish them, as they served but to torment me."

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1767

"Strike then, Nourjahad, if thou darest; dismiss me to endless and uninterrupted joys, and live thyself a prey to remorse and disappointment, the slave of passions never to be gratified, and a sport to the vicissitudes of fortune."

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

Date: 1767

"Thy ungoverned passions led thee to an act of blood!"

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

Date: 1768

"When the situation is, what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank Fortune, continued she--you had reason--the heart knew it, and was satisfied; and who but an English philosopher would have sent notices of it to the brain to reverse th...

— 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: 1769

One may gain "absolute empire over the mind" of another

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1769

"Do you think it possible, Lucy, for a Frenchwoman to love? is not vanity the ruling passion of their hearts?"

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

Date: 1769

We may blush at past follies and indiscretions "when the empire of reason begins"

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

Date: 1769

"For my part, I think no politics worth attending to but those of the little commonwealth of woman: if I can maintain my empire over hearts, I leave the men to quarrel for every thing else."

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

Date: 1769

"My voyage ought undoubtedly to be considered as an abdication: I am to all intents and purposes dead in law as a lover; and the lady has a right to consider her heart as vacant, and to proceed to a new election."

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