Date: Tuesday, November 27, 1750

"Being accustomed to give the future full power over my mind, and to start away from the scene before me to some expected enjoyment, I deliver up myself to the tyranny of every desire which fancy suggests, and long for a thousand things which I am unable to procure."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, April 14, 1750

"He therefore that would govern his actions by the laws of virtue, must regulate his thoughts by those of reason; he must keep guilt from the recesses of his heart, and remember that the pleasures of fancy, and the emotions of desire, are more dangerous as they are more hidden, since they escape ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750

"When we have heated our zeal in a cause, and elated our confidence with success, we are naturally inclined to persue the same train of reasoning, to establish some collateral truth, to remove some adjacent difficulty, and to take in the whole comprehension of our system. As a prince in the ardou...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: January 3, 1750-51, 1807

"It is the privilege of the good, to establish their empire in the hearts of their dependents; this is the triumph of my dear Mr. Richardson; and then indeed does his excellent heart exult, when he sees every one the happier and better for their connexion with him!"

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

Date: Tuesday, March 12, 1751

"[T]hey therefore flattered his vanity, applauded his discoveries, and listened with submissive modesty to his lectures on the uncertainty of inclination, the weakness of resolves, and the instability of temper, to his account of the various motives which agitate the mind, and his ridicule of the...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: August 27, 1751

"In like manner the passions usurp the separate command of the successive periods of life."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1755

"As I grew up, I too soon perceived a rancourous Disposition towards me, attended with Malice prepense, to destroy that Power I had in the Hearts of both my Parents, where I was perhaps judged to sit too triumphant, and maintained my Seat of Empire in my Mother's to her latest Moments."

— Charke [née Cibber; other married name Sacheverell], Charlotte [alias Mr Brown] (1713-1760)

Date: 1755

"This, according to the usual Custom, made each wear an Eye of Coldness and Dislike; 'till, after a long Series of Plagues, Madam Fortune, in one of her Frolicks, was pleased to pay us a small Visit, and during her short Stay we began to be better reconciled, 'till the trumpery Slut tuck...

— Charke [née Cibber; other married name Sacheverell], Charlotte [alias Mr Brown] (1713-1760)

Date: 1755

"But Nature asserted her Right of Empire in my Heart, and pointed me the Road to pay my Child a second Visit."

— Charke [née Cibber; other married name Sacheverell], Charlotte [alias Mr Brown] (1713-1760)

Date: 1755

"Love, when permitted to reign in a tender bosom, is an absolute tyrant, requiring unconditional obedience, and deeming every instance of discretion and prudence, and even too often of virtue, an act of rebellion against its usurped authority, iii. 77. [61]."

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