Date: c. 43 AD

"Those things that men's untutored hearts revere, sunk in the bondage of their bodies--jewels, gold, silver, and polished tables, huge and round--all these are earthly dross, for which the untainted spirit, conscious of its own nature, can have no love, since it is itself light and uncumbered, wa...

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

Date: 1706

"The Marble Heart groans with an inward Wound: / Blaspheming Souls of harden'd Steel / Shriek out amaz'd at the new Pangs they feel, / And dread the Eccho's of the Sound."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1715

"But Malvezzi tell us, it is, for that Nature in Providence drives away the Evil from it self, and thriftily reserves that which is Good; and for this Reason it is, says he, that those who have the Plague are desirous to come into Company, that they may give it to others; and by the same Reason, ...

— Bulstrode, Richard, Sir (1610-1711)

Date: 1725-6

"Each gentle mind the soft infection felt, for richest metals are most apt to melt"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744), Broome, W. and Fenton, E.

Date: 1726

One may be galled "with Reproaches and Contempt, more heavy, and corroding into my Soul, than the Load and Rust of my Irons eating into my Flesh? "

— Southerne, Thomas (1659-1746)

Date: 1737 (also 1738, 1743, reprinted 1754)

"Curst with such souls of base alloy, / As can possess, but not enjoy, / Debarr'd the pleasure to impart / By av'rice, sphincter of the heart, / Who wealth, hard earn'd by guilty cares, / Bequeath untouch'd to thankless heirs."

— Green, Matthew (1696-1737)

Date: 1747-8

"But the over-refinement of Platonic sentiments always sinks into the dross and feces of that Passion"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1758

"COME, Epictetus, arm my breast / With thy impenetrable steel, / No more the wounds of grief to feel, / Nor mourn, by others' woes deprest."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1764, 1773

"But 'tis not Gomez, 'tis not he whose heart / Is crusted o'er with dross, whose callous mind / Is senseless as his gold."

— Shenstone, William (1714-1763)

Date: 1788

"When the sharp iron wounds his inmost soul, / And his strain'd eyes in burning anguish roll; / Will the parch'd negro find, ere he expire, / No pain in hunger, and no heat in fire?"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)