Date: 1767

"[I]ndeed, in her more serious moments, which are but few, she, perhaps, gives me an hearing, when all at once a crowd of gayer thoughts rush on, and kill at once the hopes wherewith I was elated a few minutes before"

— O'Keeffe, John (1747-1833)

Date: 1767

"Thus it appears to be in every respect a proper counterbalance to the RAMBLING and VOLATILE power of IMAGINATION. The one, perpetually attempting to soar, is apt to deviate into the mazes of error; while the other arrests the wanderer in its vagrant course, and compels it to follow the path of n...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Nature supplies the materials of his compositions; his senses are the under-workmen, while Imagination, like a masterly Architect, superintends and directs the whole. Or, to speak more properly, Imagination both supplies the materials, and executes the work, since it calls into being 'things tha...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"If this be all, cried Nourjahad, then am I sure I shall never incur the penalty; for though I mean to enjoy all the pleasures that life can bestow, yet am I a stranger to my own heart, if it ever lead me to the wilful commission of a crime."

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

Date: 1768

"Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature, took the alarm, as I stated the proposition."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: November, 1769?

"And give me back my heart again, / And oh! instruct the roving guest, / No more to wander from my breast."

— Shaw, Cuthbert (1738-1771)

Date: 1769

"He knew when to distract its weak brain with a tumult of incongruous and contradictory ideas: he knew when to overwhelm its feeble faculty of thinking, by pouring in a torrent of words without any ideas annexed. These throng in like city-milliners to a Mile-end assembly, while it happens to be u...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1769

"I can assure thee, Peacock, that Richard was a prince of a very agreeable aspect, and excelled in every personal accomplishment; neither was his heart a stranger to the softer passions of tenderness and pity"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1769

"The first moment I saw Colonel Rivers convinced me my heart had till then been a stranger to true tenderness"

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

Date: 1770

"Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, / The soul adopts and owns their firstborn sway; / Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, / Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)