Date: 1678

"The Interpreter answered; This Parlor is the heart of a Man that was never sanctified by the sweet Grace of the Gospel: The dust, is his Original Sin, and inward Corruptions that have defiled the whole Man; He that began to sweep at first, is the Law; but She that brought water, and did sprinkle...

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Now it usually happens that these active spirits, getting possession of the brain, resemble those that haunt other waste and empty dwellings, which for want of business either vanish and carry away a piece of the house, or else stay at home and fling it all out of the windows."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1760-7

"Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doc...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"And yet I wish--Oh! my friend, 'tis like drawing a curtain before my heart--only to taste this felicity, and die and expiate my crimes.--My crimes!"

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1800

"Every sense was an inlet of pleasure, because it was an avenue to knowledge; and my soul brooded over the world of ideas, and glowed with exultation at the grandeur and beauty of its own creations"

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1854

"All closely imprisoned forces rend and destroy. The air that would be healthful to the earth, the water that would enrich it, the heat that would ripen it, tear it when caged up. So in her bosom even now; the strongest qualities she possessed, long turned upon themselves, became a heap of obdura...

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Date: 1887

"You see, he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose."

— Doyle, Arthur Conan (1859-1930)

Date: 1949-1952, 1953

"Hard, hard work, excavating and digging, mining, moling through tunnels, heaving, pushing, moving rock, working, working, working, working, working, panting, hauling, hoisting. And none of this work is seen from the outside. It's internally done. It happens because you are powerless and unable t...

— Bellow, Saul (1915-2005)

Date: 1992

"After a while, he no longer recognized what he was thinking and, just as a shop window sometimes prevents the onlooker from seeing the objects behind the glass and folds him instead in a narcissistic embrace, his mind ignored the flow of impressions from the outside world and locked him into a d...

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)