To make scatter plots with text as points in Base R, we simply need to use plot(), set the scatter points to be white, and then plot the text with text().

# Trick R into not displaying points.
with(mtcars, plot(wt ~ mpg, pch = 1, col = 'white',
                  xlab = 'MPG',
                  ylab = 'Weight',
                  main = 'Weight vs. MPG'))

# Plot the labels on the graph.
with(mtcars, text(mpg, wt, row.names(mtcars), 
                  pos = 3, cex=0.0, col = 'cyan4'))

The function plot_text() below generalizes this process:

plot_text <- function(y, x, labels, color = 'cyan4', ...) {
  
  # Blank out points
  plot(y ~ x, pch = 1, col = 'white', ...)
  
  # Plot the labels on the graph.
  text(x, y, labels, pos = 3, cex=0.0, col = color)
  
  
}

Now, let’s apply it and add average lines with abline().

with(mtcars, plot_text(wt, 
                       mpg, 
                       row.names(mtcars), 
                       color = 'salmon',
                       ylab = 'wt',
                       xlab = 'mpg'))
with(mtcars, abline(h = mean(wt), v = mean(mpg), lty = 2))

And there you go!

with(mtcars, plot(wt ~ mpg, pch = 1, type = 'n',
                  xlab = 'MPG',
                  ylab = 'Weight',
                  main = 'Weight vs. MPG'))

# Plot the labels on the graph.
with(mtcars, text(mpg, wt, row.names(mtcars), 
                  pos = 3, cex=0.0, col = 'cyan4'))