Date: 1691

"Instead of those sage and grave Notions that used to fill my Head, 'twas cramm'd top full of Whimseys and Whirligigs, by the vehement agitation of my distemper'd Fancy, as ever a Carkase-shell with Instruments of Death and Murder."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

'My very Brains (as Manichæus's Skin) are stuff'd with Chaff."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1697

"Lord, strike this Marble Heart, thy powerful Stroke / Will make a Flood gush from the cleaving Rock. / O draw all Nature's Sluces up, and drain / Her Magazines, which liquid Stores contain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Prodigious was the Compass of his Mind, / Wide as his Love, which took in Humane Kind. / He Albion's Good, not Fame or Riches fought, / Generous, and open-hearted to a fault. / An unexhausted Magazin his Brain / Did all the Treasures of the Schools contain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"St. Austin names Memory the Soul's Belly or Storehouse, or the Receptacle of the Mind, because it is appointed to receive and lay up as in a Treasury, those things that may be for our Benefit and Advantage."

— D'Assigny, Marius (1643-1717)

Date: 1708

Now among other things of this kind which he discover'd, it appear'd to him that the Animal Spirit, which is Seal'd in the Heart (as we have mention'd before) must necessarily have some Quality superadded to its Corporeity, which rendred it capable of those wonderful Actions, different Sensations...

— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)

Date: 1712

"When Objects thro' the Senses Passage gain, / And fill with various Imag'ry the Brain, / Th' Ideas, which the Mind does thence perceive,/ To Think and Know the first Occasion give."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"The Cells, and little Lodgings, Thou canst see / In Mem'ry's Hoards and secret Treasury; / Dost the dark Cave of each Idea spy, / And see'st how rang'd the crouded Lodgers lye; / How some, when beckon'd by the Soul, awake, / While peaceful Rest their uncall'd Neighbours take."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: Tuesday, April 3, 1750

"He must fly from himself, either because he feels a tediousness in life from the equipoise of an empty mind, which, having no tendency to one motion more than another, but as it is impelled by some external power, must always have recourse to foreign objects; or he must be afraid of the intrusio...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, December 13, 1750

"The most important events, when they become familiar, are no longer considered with wonder or solicitude, and that which at first filled up our whole attention, and left no place for any other thought, is soon thrust aside into some remote repository of the mind, and lies among other lumber of t...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)