Date: Tuesday, June 14, to Thursday, June 16, 1709

"This way of application to gain a lady's heart, is taking her as we do towns and castles, by distressing the place, and letting none come near them without our pass."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Thursday, June 23, to Saturday, June 25, 1709

"The conquest of passion gives ten times more happiness than we can reap from the gratification of it; and she that has got over such a one as mine, will stand among beaux and pretty fellows, with as much safety as in a summer's day among grasshoppers and butterflies."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: From Tuesday May 23. to Thursday May 25. 1710

"This is Conquest in the Philosophick Sense; but the Empire over our selves is, methinks, no less laudable in common Life, where the whole Tenour of a Man's Carriage is in Subservience to his own Reason, and Conformity both to the good Sense and Inclination of other Men."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Saturday, March 31, 1711

"I am so unhappy, as to know that what I am fond of are Trifles, and that what I neglect is of the greatest Importance: In short, I find a Contest in my own Mind between Reason and Fashion."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1722

"I say, thus it is with me while I see him; and in his absence I am entertained with nothing but your endeavors to tear this image from my heart and, in its stead, to place a base dissembler, and artful invader of my happiness, my innocence, my honor."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1722

"Had I spirits left to tell you of his actions, how strongly filial duty has suppressed his love, and how concealment still has doubled all his obligations, the pride, the joy of his alliance, sir, would warm you heart as he has conquered mine."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1760-7

"[T]here is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like--A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doc...

— 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: 1768

"I was never able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively, as by beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and gentle sensation, to fight it upon its own ground."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)