Date: 1665

"If I had not elsewhere display'd the Evil and Danger of Idleness, and represented it as a thing, which, though we should admit not to be in it self a sin, yet may easily prove a greater mischief than a very great one, by at once tempting the Tempter to tempt us, and exposing the empty Soul, like...

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

Date: 1710, 1714

"This indeed is but too certain; That as long as we enjoy a Mind; as long as we have Appetites and Sense, the Fancys of all kinds will be hard at work; and whether we are in company, or alone, they must range still, and be active. They must have their Field. The Question is, Whether they shall ha...

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1744

"TRAGEDY and COMEDY; the first fixes her Empire on the Passions, and the more exalted Contractions and Dilations of the Heart; the last, tho' not inferior (quotidem Science) holds her Rule over the less enobled Qualities and Districts of human Nature, which are call'd the Humours."

— Garrick, David (1717-1779)

Date: Saturday, September 15, 1750

"The first effect of this meditation is, that it furnishes a new employment for the mind, and engages the passions on remoter objects; as kings have sometimes freed themselves from a subject too haughty to be governed and too powerful to be crushed, by posting him in a distant province, till his ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1757

"Now the imagination is the most extensive province of pleasure and pain, as it is the region of our fears and our hopes, and of all our passions that are connected with them; and whatever is calculated to affect the imagination with these commanding ideas, by force of any original natural impres...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1770

"Thus far we have endeavoured to distinguish and ascertain the separate provinces of Reason and Common Sense. Their connection and mutual dependence, and the extent of their respective jurisdictions, we now proceed more particularly to investigate."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)