Date: 1660, 1676

"For a scrupulous conscience does not take away the proper determination of the understanding; but it is like a Woman handling of a Frog or a Chicken, which, all their friends tell them, can do them no hurt, and they are convinced in reason that they cannot, they believe it and know it ;...

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)

Date: 1666

"The composition of all poems is or ought to be of wit, and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction), is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it ...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1678

"A Weak mind complains before it is overtaken with evil, and as Birds are affrighted with the noise of the Sling, so the infirm soul anticipates its troubles by its own fearful apprehensions, and falls under them before they are yet arrived."

— Wanley, Nathaniel (1634-1680)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

The Understanding's "searches after Truth, are a sort of Hawking and Hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the Pleasure"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"How far such an one [one in whom "decrepid old Age" has blotted out Memory] (notwithstanding all that is boasted of innate Principles) is in his Knowledge, and intellectual Faculties, above the Condition of a Cockle, or an Oyster, I leave to be considered."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"The ignorance and darkness that is in us, no more hinders nor confines the knowledge that is in others, than the blindness of a mole is an argument against the quicksightedness of an eagle"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1694, 1704

"If we govern ourselves in the use of sensual delight, by the Laws of God and reason, we shall find ourselves more at ease than if we should let loose the reins to our appetites and lusts."

— Tillotson, John (1630–1694)

Date: 1698

"I was apt to think the best way were, to let Nature spend it self; and although those who write out of their own Thoughts do it with as much Ease and Pleasure as a Spider spins his Web; yet the World soon grows weary of Controversies, especially when they are about Personal Matters."

— Stillingfleet, Edward (1635-1699)

Date: 1699, 1714

"There is no body who has consider'd ever so little the nature of the sensible part, the Soul or Mind, but knows that in the same manner as without action, motion and employment, the Body languishes and is oppress'd, its Nourishment grows the matter and food of Disease, the Spirits unconsum'd hel...

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1700, 1712

"And so our Saviour tells us, that 'whosoever committeth sin is the Servant of sin'; and this is the vilest and hardest Slavery in the World, because it is the Servitude of the Soul, the best and noblest part of our selves; 'tis the subjection of our Reason, which ought to rule and bear Sway over...

— Tillotson, John (1630-1694)