Date: 1757

"The tossing of the sea remains after the storm; and when this remain of horror has entirely subsided, all the passion, which the accident raised, subsides along with it; and the mind returns to its usual state of indifference"

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1758

"As you would not wish to sail in a large, and finely decorated, and gilded Ship, and sink: so neither is it eligible to inhabit a grand and sumptuous House, and be in a Storm [of Passions and Cares]."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"Je méditois donc sur le triste sort des mortels flottant sur cette mer des opinions humaines, sans gouvernail, sans boussole, & livrés à leurs passions orageuses, sans autre guide qu’un pilote inexpérimenté qui méconnaît sa route, & qui ne sait ni d’où il vient ni où il va."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"Those storms may discompose in proportion as they are strong, or the mind is pliant to their impression."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"YOUR last letters betray a mind seemingly fond of wisdom, yet tempested up by a thousand various passions."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1764

"Nobody knows what really is the being called 'spirit', to which even you give the material name of 'spirit', which means wind."

— Arouet, François-Marie [known as Voltaire] (1694-1778)

Date: 1765

"Religion is exalted Reason, refin'd and sifted from the grosser Parts of it; It dwells in the upper Region of the Mind, where there are fewest Clouds or Mists to darken or offend it."

— Anonymous

Date: 1766

"'Melancholy', is, generally, the effect of constitution; its cloudy ideas overpower and banish all that are chearful."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: 1767

"These topics will, for the most part, be very extraordinary, and altogether unexpected; but they will constantly produce the intended effect. They will operate upon the mind by surprise; they will strike like lightening, and penetrate the heart at once."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: January 2, 1769

"Every seminary of learning may be said to be surrounded with an atmosphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may gather somewhat congenial to its own original conceptions."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)