Date: c. 10-8 BC

"quidquid praecipies, esto brevis, ut cito dicta / percipiant animi dociles teneantque fideles: / omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat" [Whatever precepts you give, be concise; that docile minds may soon comprehend what is said, and faithfully retain it. All superfluous instructions flow from ...

— Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Horace] (65 BC - 8 BC)

Date: 1588

"I laugh not at another's loss, / Nor grudge not at another's gain; / No worldly waves my mind can toss; / I brook that is another's bane."

— Dyer, Sir Edward (1543-1607)

Date: 1610

Souls may "by our first touch, take in / The poisonous tincture of original sin"

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1642, 1655, 1668

"O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream / My great example, as it is my theme! / Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, / Strong without rage, without ore-flowing full."

— Denham, John, Sir (1615-1669)

Date: 1666

"O truly royal! who behold the law, / And rule of beings in your Maker's mind; / And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw, / To fit the levelled use of humankind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1667

"Our mem'ries like the Cullender that streins / Pure liquor out, but drossie dregs reteins"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1667

"The Conscience was ever, and is still / The fountain of all actions, good or ill;"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Yet soon he healed; for Spirits that live throughout / Vital in every part, not as frail man / In entrails, heart of head, liver or reins, / Cannot but by annihilating die; / Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound / Receive, no more than can the fluid air: / All heart they live, all head, all ...

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Thus with ten wounds / The river dragon tamed at length submits / To let his sojourners depart, and oft / Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice / More hardened after thaw."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"The animal spirits, that from pure blood arise / Like gentle breaths from rivers pure, thence raise / At least distempered, discontented thoughts, / Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires, / Blown up with high conceits ingendering pride."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)