Date: 1708, 1714

"The Human Mind and Body are both of 'em naturally subject to Commotions: and as there are strange Ferments in the Blood, which in many Bodys occasion an extraordinary discharge; so in Reason too, there are heterogeneous Particles which must be thrown off by Fermentation."

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

Date: 1708, 1714

"For besides that our Reason, which knows the Cheat, will never rest thorowly satisfy'd on such a Bottom, but turn us often a-drift, and toss us in a Sea of Doubt and Perplexity."

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

Date: 1737

"My faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no dispraise to me that they will not: the cleanness and purity of one's mind is never better proved, than in discovering its own faults at first view; as when a stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"You see 'tis with weak heads as with weak stomachs, they immediately throw out what they received last; and what they read floats upon the surface of their mind, like oil upon water, without incorporating."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1774

"A parcel of warm hearts and inexperienced heads, heated by convivial mirth, and possibly a little too much wine, vow, and really mean at the time, eternal friendships to each other, and indiscreetly pour out their whole souls in common, and without the least reserve."

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1782

"I should suppose kindness would do any thing with them;--my soul melts at kindness."

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"Such a research would richly pay us--for the end would be conviction--so much on the side of miraculous mercy--such an unanswerable proof of the superintendency of Divine Providence, as would effectually cure us of rash despondency--and melt our hearts--with devotional aspirations--till we poure...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: September 10, 1802

"A Poet's Heart & Intellect should be combined, intimately combined & unified, with the great appearances in Nature -- & not merely held in solution & loose mixture with them, in the shape of formal Similies."

— Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)

Date: November 10, 1813

"I by no means rank poetry or poets high in the scale of intellect. This may look like affectation, but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruptions prevents an earthquake."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)