Date: 1748, 1749

"And where is the wonder that the body when in health should be subservient, for how can it resist that torrent of blood, and all those spirits which are ready to force obedience, the will having for its ministers an invisible army of fluids, always ready to receive its orders, and as quick as li...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1749

A "Somewhat" may inhabit in the human breast that resembles the "famous Trunkmaker in the Playhouse"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1749

"I might honestly enough have concealed this Wish from the Reader, as it was one of those secret spontaneous Emotions of the Soul, to which the Reason is often a Stranger."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1749

"His Conscience, however, immediately started at this Suggestion, and began to upbraid him with Ingratitude to his Benefactor. To this his Avarice answered, 'That his Conscience should have considered that Matter before, when he deprived poor Jones of his 500 l. That having quie...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1749

"In return to which, Conscience, like a good Lawyer, attempted to distinguish between an absolute Breach of Trust, as here where the Goods were delivered, and a bare Concealment of what was found, as in the former Case. Avarice presently treated this with Ridicule, called it a Distinction without...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1749

"The Passions, like the Managers of a Playhouse, often force Men upon Parts, without consulting, their Judgement, and sometimes without any Regard to their Talents"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1749

"Those Persons, indeed, who have passed any Time behind the Scenes of this great Theatre, and are thoroughly acquainted not only with the several Disguises which are there put on, but also with the fantastic and capricious Behaviour of the Passions who are the Managers and Directors of this Theat...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: Saturday, September 15, 1750

"The first effect of this meditation is, that it furnishes a new employment for the mind, and engages the passions on remoter objects; as kings have sometimes freed themselves from a subject too haughty to be governed and too powerful to be crushed, by posting him in a distant province, till his ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, April 10, 1750

"Our senses, our appetites, and our passions, are our lawful and faithful guides, in most things that relate solely to this life; and, therefore, by the hourly necessity of consulting them, we gradually sink into an implicit submission, and habitual confidence."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1942

"It has to be on that stage / And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and / With meditation, speak words that in the ear, / In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat, / Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound / Of which, an invisible audience listens, / Not to the play, but to itself, ex...

— Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955)