Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Julie, or the New Heloise," 1761

Just as clocks are ordinarily wound up to go only twenty-four hours at a time, so these people have to go into society every night to learn what they're going to think the next day.

Joseph Addison, "Cato," 1713

"'Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it."
[I.i.44-5]

"Let me alone, good Syphax: I'll conceal
My thoughts in passion ('tis the surest way);
I'll bellow out for Rome and for my country,
And mouth at Caesar till I shake the senate.
Your cold hypocrisy's a stale device,
A worn-out trick: wouldst thou be thought in earnest?
Clothe thy feigned zeal in rage, in fire, in fury!"
[I.iii.36-42]

"'Tis not a set of features, or complexion,
The tincture of a skin, that I admire.
Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense."
[I.iv.143-6]

Ovid, "Metamorphoses," Book III

O fondly foolish boy, why vainly seek to clasp a fleeting image? What you seek is nowhere; but turn yourself away, and the object of your love will be no more. That which you behold is but the shadow of a reflected form and has no substance of its own. With you it comes, with you it stays, and it will go with you--if you can go.