Date: May 10, 1704

"Now it usually happens that these active spirits, getting possession of the brain, resemble those that haunt other waste and empty dwellings, which for want of business either vanish and carry away a piece of the house, or else stay at home and fling it all out of the windows."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1724

"[S]o with my Eyes open, and with my Conscience, as I may say, awake, I sinn'd, knowing it to be a Sin, but having no Power to resist; when this had thus made a Hole in my Heart, and I was come to such a height, as to transgress against the Light of my own Conscience, I was then fit for any Wicke...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1724

"Vanity is a lurking subtile Thief, that works itself insensibly into our Bosoms, and while we declare our dislike to it, know not 'tis so near us; every body being (as a witty Gentleman has somewhere said) provided with a Racket to strike it from themselves."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1747-8

"Yet her charming body is not equally organized. The unequal partners pull two ways; and the divinity within her tears her silken frame."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1751

"This Speech, I own, gave me the first Reflection I ever had in my Life, and lock'd up all my Faculties for a long Time; nor was I able, for the Variety of Ideas that crowded my Brain, to make a Word of Answer, but stood like an Image of Stone"

— Paltock, Robert (1697-1767)

Date: 1753

The heart may a "stranger to those young desires which haunt the fancy and warm breast of youth"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1760-7

"I mention this, not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the progress and establishment of my father's many odd opinions,--but as a warning to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such guests, who, after a free and undisturbed enterance, for some years, into our brai...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"But for sleep--I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin--I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place--and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world--'tis the refuge of the unfortunate--the enfranchisement of the prisoner--the downy l...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"But the heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain,--the soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deli...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1773

"Zounds! Sir, can you give any relief to a soul that is haunted by Furies?"

— Graves, Richard (1715-1804)