Date: September 1, 1759.

"The incursions of troublesome thoughts are often violent and importunate; and it is not easy to a mind accustomed to their inroads to expel them immediately by putting better images into motion; but this enemy of quiet is above all others weakened by every defeat; the reflection which has been o...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: September 1, 1759.

"The mind cannot retire from its enemy into total vacancy, or turn aside from one object but by passing to another."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1760-7

"[T]here is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like--A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doc...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"But the heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain,--the soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deli...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1761

One may "play to the eye with a mere monkey's art" and leave "to sense the conquest of the heart"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762

"I learnt, that when these people were first rescued out of their misery, their healths were much impaired, and their tempers more so: to restore the first, all medicinal care was taken, and air and exercise assisted greatly in their recovery; but to cure the malady of the mind, and conquer that ...

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

Date: 1762

"The constant sense of my guilt, the continual regret at having by my own ill conduct forfeited the happiness, which every action of Lord Peyton's proved that his wife might reasonably expect, fixed a degree of melancholy on my mind, which no time has been able to conquer."

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

Date: 1762

"Unfortunately Miss Melvyn's charms made a conquest of this gentleman, in whom age had not gained a victory over passion."

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

Date: 1762

"He reverenced and respected her like a divinity, but hoped that prudence might enable him to conquer his passion."

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