Date: 1760-7

"Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court [of Conscience]:--Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;--or was asham'd to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Or, lastly, were we assured, that Interest stood always unconcern'd whilst the cause was hearing,--and that passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounc'd sentence in the stead of reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:--What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things,--that trifles light as air, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it,--that Euclid's de...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1761

"By no forc'd laws his passions were confin'd, / For conscience kept his heart, and calm'd his mind / Peace o'er the world her blessed sway maintain'd, / And e'en in desarts smiling Plenty reign'd."

— Telescope, Tom [pseud.]

Date: 1761, 1765

"If Prejudices rule with tyrant sway, / Teach them the voice of Reason to obey."

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

Date: 1762, 1781

"Delusion o'er my Mind usurps Command, / And rules each Sense with Fancy's magic Wand."

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1762-3

"By tyrants awed, who never find / The passage to their people's mind; / To whom the joy was never known / Of planting in the heart their throne."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"The senses all must homage pay; / Hither they all must tribute bring, / And prostrate fall before their king."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1763 (repr. 1776); 1794 (repr. 1799)

"That mind is said to be possessed of NATURAL LIBERTY, or liberty of choice, which is so constituted, as that its volitions shall not be invincibly determined by any foreign cause or consideration whatever offered to it, but by its own sovereign pleasure."

— Doddridge, Philip (1702-1751)