Date: 1747-8

"A man who is gross in a woman's company ought to be knocked down with a club: for, like so many musical instruments, touch but a single wire, and the dear souls are sensible all over "

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

Date: 1748

"Yet were the jarring passions tuned, / The soil from thorns and thistles clear, / Some latent virtue might appear."

— Leapor, Mary (1722-1746)

Date: Tuesday, November 20, 1750

"Yet, if we consider the conduct of those sententious philosophers, it will often be found, that they repeat these aphorisms, merely because they have somewhere heard them, because they have nothing else to say, or because they think veneration gained by such appearances of wisdom, but that no id...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1751

"Another Source of mutual Misapprehension on this Subject hath been 'the Introduction of metaphorical Expressions instead of proper ones.' Nothing is so common among the Writers on Morality, as 'the Harmony of Virtue'—'the Proportion of Virtue.'"

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: Saturday, January 25, 1752

"Whatever may be the native vigour of the mind, she can never form many combinations from few ideas, as many changes cannot be rung upon a few bells."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1754

"When temptations arise, and virtue staggers, let imagination sound the final trumpet, and judgment lay hold on eternal Life"

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

Date: 1754

"My dear Dr. Bartlett, said he, your soul is harmony: I doubt not but all these are in order"

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

Date: 1755

"Think not these Tears unnerve me, valiant Friends: / They have but harmoniz'd my Soul; and waked / All that is Man within me, to disdain / Peril, or Death."

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1758

"But when, in Parties of Conversation, she glows by the Beams of Reason, then command her [the soul] to speak from Inspiration and utter the Oracles of Justice [like a Grasshopper]."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"Yet, if too soon this transient Pleasure fly, / A Charm more lasting shall the Loss supply: / While Harmony, with each attractive Grace, / Plays in the fair Proportions of her Face; / Where each soft Air, engaging and serene, / Beats Measure to the well-tun'd Mind within."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)