Date: 1774

"It is a very old and very true maxim, that those kings reign the most secure and the most absolute, who reign in the hearts of their people."

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1774

"Vanity is unquestionably the ruling passion in women; and it is much flattered by the attentions of a man who is generally esteemed by men; when his merit has received the stamp of their approbation, women make it current, that is to say, put him in fashion."

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1774

"The nymph, who in my bosom reigns, / With such full force my heart enchains, / That nothing ever can impair / The empire she possesses there."

— Dibdin, Charles (bap. 1745, d. 1814)

Date: 1774

"To them see Genius her best gifts impart, / And Science raise a throne in every heart!"

— Scott, Mary [later Taylor] (1751/2-1793)

Date: 1775

"Coriolanus has here carried his sternness, and the strained principles of stoical pride, whose throne is only in the mind, as far as they could go; and now great Nature, whose more sovereign seat of empire is in the heart, takes her turn to triumph; for upon the joint prayers, tears, and intreat...

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"Also those phenomena in nature which depend upon gravity, electricity, &c. are no less various and complex; and the more we know of nature, the more particular facts, and particular laws, we are able to reduce to simple and general laws: insomuch that now it does not appear impossible, but that,...

— Priestley, Joseph (1733-1804)

Date: 1775

"Suspence not long my anxious bosom pain'd, / My friend arrived, I clasp'd her to my breast, / I wept, I smiled, alternate passions reign'd, / Till me the sad unwelcome tale confess'd."

— Miss H******* (fl. 1751-1775)

Date: w. c. 1751, 1775

"With darts and flames some arm his [Love's] feeble hands, / His infant brow with regal honours crown; / Whilst vanquished Reason, bound with silken bands, / Meanly submissive, falls below his throne."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: w. c. 1751, 1775

"Each fabling poet sure alike mistakes / The gentle power that reigns o'er tender hearts."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1776, 1781, 1788-89

"At the age of twelve years he embraced the rigid system of the Stoicks, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external, as things indifferent."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)