Date: 1764

Brave rage, a "grand master passion," may flame out for country

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1768

"In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1774

"I expect the incomparable fair one of Hamburg, that prodigy of beauty, and paragon of good sense, who has enslaved your mind, and inflamed your heart."

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1789

"Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire and every noble sentiment?"

— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)

Date: 1793

"Law may be supposed to have been constructed in the tranquil serenity of the soul, a suitable monitor to check the inflamed mind with which the recent memory of ills might induce us to proceed to the exercise of coercion"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1801

Virtue may be a man's "eternal flame" or "ruling passion"

— Blacklock, Thomas (1721-1791)