Date: 1742

"But what hurt her most was, that in reality she had not so entirely conquered her Passion; the little God lay lurking in her Heart, tho' Anger and Disdain so hoodwinked her, that she could not see him"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1742

"Not the gross act alone employs her pen; / She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band, / A watchful foe! the formidable spy, / Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp; / Our dawning purposes of heart explores, / And steals our embryos of iniquity."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

""Reason with Inclination why at war? / Why sense of guilt? Why Conscience up in arms?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"[T]hus pale revenge / Unsheaths her murderous dagger; and the hands / Of lust and rapine, with unholy arts, / Watch to o'erturn the barrier of the laws / That keeps them from their prey: thus all the plagues / The wicked bear, or o'er the trembling scene / The tragic muse discloses, under shapes...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1748, 1749

"And where is the wonder that the body when in health should be subservient, for how can it resist that torrent of blood, and all those spirits which are ready to force obedience, the will having for its ministers an invisible army of fluids, always ready to receive its orders, and as quick as li...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1751

"In fevers, the sudden failing of the strength and pulse ought, we are told, to be regarded by us as signs of the despairing soul's discontinuing her care of the body, and being soon about to relinquish it: nay, sometimes, like a mean and silly coward, she sinks even under such diseases, as, in t...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751, 1791

"The passions are a num'rous crowd, / Imperious, positive, and loud: / Curb these licentious sons of strife; / Hence chiefly rise the storms of life: / If they grow mutinous, and rave, / They are thy masters, thou their slave."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752

"Assist me, Furies, with your hellish Aid, / Nor let the Tyrant Conscience more invade; / Since I am stain'd with Blood, thro' Blood I'll wade."

— Gentleman, Francis (1728-1784)

Date: 1758

Here lurks DISTEMPER's horrid train / And there the PASSIONS lift their flaming brands; / These with fell rage my helpless body tear, / While those, with daring hands, / Against th' immortal soul their impious weapons rear."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1759

"This order of passions, according to this system, was of a more generous and noble nature than the other. They were considered upon many occasions as the auxiliaries of reason, to check and restrain the inferior and brutal appetites. We are often angry at ourselves, it was observed, we often bec...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)