Date: 1780-85; in French, 36 vols. 1749-1788

"Is it difficult to perceive that our ideas originate from our senses alone; that the objects we regard as real existences, are those concerning which the senses uniformly give the same testimony."

— Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de (1707-1788)

Date: 1780

"Hast thou no failings of thine own, / No ruling passion in thy breast, / That robs thee of thy balmy rest?"

— Anstey, Christopher (1724-1805)

Date: 1780

"Reason, (weak empress of the mind) / To passion had the helm consign'd"

— Steele, Anne (1717-1778)

Date: 1780

"Once love gets into a man's head, poor reason is brought before a court-martial of the passions, and cashiered without a hearing"

— Pilon, Frederick (1750-1788)

Date: 1780

Virtue and "this virtues woman" may be "first ruling passions"

— Steele, Anne (1717-1778)

Date: 1780

"Reason's empire never knew a slave, / Her sway is gentle and her laws are kind"

— Steele, Anne (1717-1778)

Date: ca. 1780

"No Pleasures, believe me, that wretch shall e'er taste, / No comfort his bosom e'er find; / Who suffers ill-temper to ruffle his breast, / And fretfulness reign in his mind."

— Kilner, Dorothy (1755-1836)

Date: 1781

"Well may'st thou bend o'er this congenial sphere; / For Sensibility is sovereign here."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1781, 1791

"How vainly the tumultuous passions strive / To shake his breast! they claim no empire there"

— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)

Date: 1781, second ed. 1787

"Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to pro...

— Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)