Date: 1603

"This is the very coinage of your brain."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1640

"Hexamater's no sterling, and I feare / What the brain coines goes scarce for currency there"

— Randolph, Thomas (bap. 1605, d. 1635)

Date: 1651, 1668

"The Latins called accounts of money rationes, and accounting ratiocinatio; and that which we in bills or books of account call items, they call nomina, that is names; and thence it seems to proceed, that they extended the word ratio to the faculty of reckoning in all other things."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"For words are wise mens counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the mony of fooles, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other Doctor whatsoever, if but a man."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1656

"He is too froward, that will refuse a piece of coin that is current throughout the world, because it is not stamped after his own fancy."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1657

Fancy is "The souls mint."

— Poole, Joshua (c.1615–c.1656)

Date: 1657

Fancy is "The immateriall Coyner. That makes a bodilesse Creation."

— Poole, Joshua (c.1615–c.1656)

Date: 1664

"[B]ut when the difficulty of artful rhyming is interposed, where the poet commonly confines his sense to his couplet, and must contrive that sense into such words, that the rhyme, shall naturally follow them, not they the rhyme; the fancy then gives leisure to the judgment to come in; which seei...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1667, 1710

"And there are very few that have any true Kindness for it, and thou knowest not the Worth of that Jewel, thy Soul; but here, here's a Friend, if thou wilt but leave it with him, he will take care of it, it shall not be marted away for nothing."

— Janeway, James (1636?-1674)

Date: 1667, 1710

"If therefore thou hast any Love for thy poor Soul, if thou settest any Price upon that precious Thing within thee; in a word, if thou wouldst have thy Soul do well in another World, O strike in here, close with these Tenders, listen to the Counsel of him who offers you the best Advice in the Wor...

— Janeway, James (1636?-1674)