Date: 1748, 1777

"And while the body is confined to one planet, along which it creeps with pain and difficulty; the thought can in an instant transport us into the most distant regions of the universe; or even beyond the universe, into the unbounded chaos, where nature is supposed to lie in total confusion."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"'Tis then, nor sooner, that the restless mind / Shall find itself at home; and like the ark / Fix'd on the mountain-top, shall look-aloft / O'er the vague passage of precarious life; / And, winds and waves and rocks and tempests past, / Enjoy the everlasting calm of Heav'n."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1751, 1777

"We may as well imagine, that minute wheels and springs, like those of a watch, give motion to a loaded wagon, as account for the origin of passion from such abstruse reflections."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1753

"Trembling, he sees the threatning tempest roll, / And ev'ry rising billow lifts his soul:"

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1754

"The mind that chuses to nourish the turba, by a restless desire after impossibilities, takes delight, like the fireship, to communicate its devouring flame to all that are so miserable as to fall in its way"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1754

"It was the error of your judgment, Cylinda, and not a malicious heart, that caused your desire of leading my imagination in the same road with your own"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1756, 1766

"As the instincts and passions were wisely and kindly given us, to subserve many purposes of our present state, let them have their proper, subaltern share of action; but let reason ever have the sovereignty, (the divine law of reason and truth) and be, as it were, sail and wind to the vessel of ...

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

"This is beyond the reach of our conception. Imagination cannot plumb her line so low."

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1759

"Dissembling Love his Temper may conceal, / But Wedlock will his hidden Soul unvail; / So distant Ships, at Sea, wear false Disguise, / But show true Colors, when they seize a Prize."

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)

Date: 1760

"How short aspiring Reason's vaunted Line, / When stretch'd to search thy Ways, thy Works divine!""

— Langhorne, John (1735-1779)