Date: 1752

"I hope I am not guilty of Profaneness; but in Pursuance of that cheerful Chain of Thoughts with which you have inspired me this Afternoon, I was just now lost in a Reverie, and fancied myself in those blissful Mansions which we hope to enjoy hereafter."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1754

One may have a hole in their heart "thro' which one may run one's head"

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

Date: 1754

"She had from her chamber-window been shot through the heart by the blind archer, who took his stand on the feather of a military man marching at the head of his company through the market-town in which she lived"

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

Date: 1759

"From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less also to hope, and they lose, without equivalent the joys of early love and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of new impressions, which might wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1765 [1764]

"This bitter taunt galled the soul of Manfred."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)

Date: 1770-1

"This rather disconcerted his scheme, and set him a scratching, that being a kind of involuntary motion with him, whenever a train of ideas kept whirling in his brain with such velocity that he could not fix on any single one to stick by, and let the rest whirl out the way they came in."

— Bridges, Thomas (b. 1710?, d. in or after 1775)

Date: 1773

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

— Graves, Richard (1715-1804)

Date: 1783, 1785, 1789

"Indeed, the real seat of all superiority, even of manners, must be placed in the mind: dignified sentiments, superior courage, accompanied with genuine and universal courtesy, are always necessary to constitute the real gentleman; and where these are wanting, it is the greatest absurdity to thin...

— Day, Thomas (1748-1789)