Date: 1754

"The character of a candid enquirer is very commendable; for in his search whatever he finds he immediately acknowledges; he gives his judgment liberty to exert itself, and restrains his imagination from soaring beyond its strength, and from declaring that he hath found what is not."

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1754

"You will be greater than Clementina, and that is greater than the greatest, if you can conquer a passion, that over-turned her reason"

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

Date: 1754

"But I could no longer divert myself by Proteus-like putting on that character which best suited my fancy; for I was now chain'd down and enslaved to the most rigid of all tyrants, an uncontroulable passion."

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1754

"The human mind, and every part of intelligent nature, is exempt from these laws [of the physical world], and hath the power of cherishing one seed and stifling another"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1754

There is "narrow-hearted race of men, who live only for the gratification of their own lawless appetites, and consider all the rest of the world as made for themselves"

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

Date: 1754

"My brother, tho' in the main, above singularity, will, nevertheless, in things he thinks right, be govern'd by his own rules, which are the laws of reason and convenience."

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

Date: 1754

"Let [my love] be evermore circumscribed by the laws of reason, of duty"

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

Date: 1754

"How often has that tender bosom, whose glory it would have been to melt at another's woe, and to rejoice in acts of kindness and benevolence to her fellow-creatures, been armed by herself (not the mistress, but the slave, of her passions) not with defensive, but offensive, steel!"

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

Date: 1759

The passions may "rebel against their proper Guide, and forcibly snatch the Reins out of the Hands of that Governor appointed to restrain and keep them within their own prescribed Bounds"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1760

"[W]hen the mighty spirit of a large mass of gold takes possession of the human heart, it influences all its actions, and overpowers, or banishes, the weaker impulse of those immaterial, unessential notions called virtues"

— Johnstone, Charles (c.1719-c.1800)