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: 1768

"With reason, said I; for if it is a good one, 'tis pity it should be stolen: 'tis a little treasure to thee, and gives a better air to your face, than if it was dress'd out with pearls."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter'd my mind that we were at war with France; and had reach'd Dover, and look'd through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the idea presented itself; and with this in its train, that there was no getting there without a pa...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"I vow, I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; or do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call'd home."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rose-buds of delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthen'd and refresh'd."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1769

A debt of gratitude to parents is "stamp'd upon our frames; In polish'd minds it shines the most"

— Reed, Joseph (1723-1787)

Date: 1769

"Your beauteous looks inspire my mind / With passion of the purest kind: / No selfish views my bosom sway, / But all is love without allay."

— Reed, Joseph (1723-1787)

Date: 1769

"For every Creature of this World, animate or inanimate, is in its Degree, a Microcosm of all the Powers, that are in the great World, of which it is a Part."

— Law, William (1686-1761)

Date: October 10, 1769

"My imagination without wing or broom stick off mounts aloft, rises into ye Regions of pure space, and without lett or impediment bears me to your fireside, where you can set me in your easy chair, and we talk and reason, as angel Host and guest Aetherial should do, of high and important matters."

— Montagu [née Robinson], Elizabeth (1718-1800)