Date: 1761

"It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impluses of self-love."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1761

"It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1761

"Even in good men, the judge within is often in danger of being corrupted by the violence and injustice of their selfish passions, and is often induced to make a report very different from what the real circumstances of the case are capable of authorizing."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1761

One may "play to the eye with a mere monkey's art" and leave "to sense the conquest of the heart"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: April 1761

"What the grave triflers on this busy scene, / When they make use of this word Reason, mean, / I know not; but according to my plan, / 'Tis Lord Chief-Justice in the court of man"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: May 13, 1761

"In all my Enna's beauties blest, / Amidst profusion still I pine; / For though she gives me up her breast, / Its panting tenant is not mine."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1761

One may sacrifice an over-ruling passion to the sober calls of reason and humanity

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

Date: 1761

"I hope 'tis nothing but her extreme sensibility, and that after those first violent struggles are over, reason and discretion will reassume their empire."

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

Date: 1761

"As I have an implicit faith in this good woman's skill, I remained perfectly satisfied with the judgment she had pronounced; and agreeing with her, that the sickness of the mind was beyond the power of medicine to reach."

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

Date: 1761

"We are indeed so much used to what they call poetical justice, that we are disappointed in the catastrophe of a fable, if every body concerned in it be not disposed of according to the sentence of that judge which we have set up in our own breasts"

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