Date: 1762

"An idle mind, like fallow ground, is the soil for every weed to grow in; in it vice strengthens, the seed of every vanity flourishes unmolested and luxuriant; discontent, malignity, ill humour, spread far and wide, and the mind becomes a chaos, which it is beyond human power to call into order a...

— Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720-1795)

Date: 1765 [1764]

"The friar, who knew nothing of the youth but what he had learnt occasionally from the princess, ignorant of what became of him, and not sufficiently reflecting on the impetuosity of Manfred's temper, conceived that it might not be amiss to sow the seeds of jealousy in his mind."

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

Date: 1777

"He was born with better feelings; he was naturally humane, tender, compassionate but he had, unfortunately for himself, been educated by a father, who, as we have already observed, had taken the most unwearied pains to eradicate from his expanding mind those social affections which the Deity has...

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Be ever thus, my dearest Evelina, dauntless in the cause of distress! let no weak fears, no timid doubts, deter you from the exertion of your duty, according to the fullest sense of it that Nature has implanted in your mind."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Yet, Madam, so hard is it to root from the mind its favourite principles, or prejudices, call them which you please, that I lingered another week ere I had the resolution to send away a letter which I regarded as the death of my independence."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"'Hast thou so much heart?' cried he, with emotion, "and has fortune, though it has cursed thee with the temptation of prosperity, not yet rooted from thy mind its native benevolence?"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1783

"Weeds in abundance spring up in a piece of ground which is neglected; -- so do naughty dispositions in an uncultivated mind."

— Fenn [née Frere], Ellenor (1744-1813)

Date: 1784

"Till with care the garden of the mind."

— Fenn [née Frere], Ellenor (1744-1813)

Date: 1784

"As a piece of ground which is negligently cultivated, produces abundance of noxious weeds, so in the soul of an indolent man over-run with numberless vicious passions."

— Fenn [née Frere], Ellenor (1744-1813)

Date: 1788

"These various movements of her mind were not commented on, nor were the luxuriant shoots restrained by culture."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)