Date: 1749

"but to me they [natural impressions of surprize and admiration] sensibly prov'd the power and full dominion of the sole passion of my heart over me, a passion in which soul and body were concenter'd, and left me no room for any other relish of life but love"

— Cleland, John (bap. 1710, d. 1789)

Date: 1751

"For partly the Recommendation of his Person, but chiefly the Profusion of his Expences made her think him a very desireable Lover; and as she saw that his ruling Passion was Vanity, she was too good a Dissembler, and too much a Mistress of her Trade, not to flatter this Weakness for her own Ends."

— Coventry, (William) Francis Walter (1725-1753/4)

Date: 1759

"You will easily believe that I was pleased with his courtesy; and finding that his predominant passion was desire of money, I began now to think my danger less, for I knew that no sum would be thought too great for the release of Pekuah."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"He shewed, with great strength of sentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impressed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"He shewed, with great strength of sentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues but the natural effect of unlawful go...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time despotick."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1762

"His mind was so entirely enslaved, that he beheld nothing but in the light wherein she pleased to represent it, and was so easy a dupe, that she could scarcely feel the joys of self triumph in her superior art, which was on no subject so constantly exerted, as in keeping up a coldness in Sir Cha...

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

Date: 1762

"They were received on their arrival by a maiden sister of Mr. Morgan's, who till then had kept his house, and he intended should still remain in it; for as through the partiality of an aunt, who had bred her up, she was possessed of a large fortune, her brother, in whom avarice was the ruling pa...

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

Date: 1762

"The tenderest affections of her heart were too much concerned in what she had done, to leave her the power of feeling any apprehensions of poverty; all the evils that attend it then appeared to her so entirely external, that she beheld them with the calm philosophy of a stoic, and not from a ver...

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