Date: 1751
"Thus a lively Imagination and unperceived Self-Love, fetter the Heart in certain ideal Bonds of their own creating: Till at length some turbulent and furious Passion arising in its Strength, breaks these fantastic Shackles which Fancy had imposed, and leaps to its Prey like a Tyger chained by Co...
preview | full record— Brown, John (1715-1766)
Date: 1758
"In all Vice, Pleasure being presented like a Bait, draws sensual Minds to the Hook of Perdition."
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: 1759
"How have thy Houyhnhunms thrown thy judgment from its seat, and laid thy imagination in the mire?"
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1759
"This [her own Mind] being haunted with Ghosts, dejected with an unaccountable Melancholy, and afflicted with a Variety of Distempers, tho' we are at a Loss to discover what Appellation to give them, is very often the Result of nothing more than a strong Imagination unimployed, which could be all...
preview | full record— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)
Date: 1759
"Their [pedants'] constant overstraining of the Mind / Distorts the Brain, as Horses break their Wind / Or rude Confusions of the Things they read / Get up, like noxious Vapours, in the Head, / Until they have their constant Wanes and Fulls, / And Changes in the Insides of their Skulls."
preview | full record— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)
Date: 1760-7
"When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,--or, in other words, when his Hobby-Horse grows head-strong,--farewell cool reason and fair discretion!"
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1761, 1765
"Labour and Want (unhospitable twain) / Chill not the current in Life's salient vein; / Nor damp the spirits, else of sprightly cast, / Nor check the nobler passions of the breast; / Nor blunt the fine Sensation's tender edge, / Which man's chief pride philosophers allege. / Thus some fair ...
preview | full record— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)
Date: 1762
"Therefore, I have no one notion, / That is not form'd, like the designing / Of the peristaltick motion; / Vermicular; twisting and twining; / Going to work / Just like a bottle-skrew upon a cork."
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1762
"If by the Day's illusive Scenes misled, / My erring Soul from Virtue’s Path has stray'd; / Snar'd by example, or by Passion warm'd, / Some false Delight my giddy Sense has charm'd, / My calmer Thoughts the wretched Choice reprove, / And my best Hopes are center'd in thy Love."
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: October 10, 1769
"My imagination without wing or broom stick off mounts aloft, rises into ye Regions of pure space, and without lett or impediment bears me to your fireside, where you can set me in your easy chair, and we talk and reason, as angel Host and guest Aetherial should do, of high and important matters."
preview | full record— Montagu [née Robinson], Elizabeth (1718-1800)