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)

Date: 1670

Weakness of mind may be water-like or wax-like

— Greville, Fulke, first Baron Brooke of Beauchamps Court (1554-1628)

Date: 1675, 1746

"The Ground needs no other midwifery in bringing forth Weeds, than only the neglect of the Husbandman's Hand to pluck them up; the Air needs no other Cause of Darkness, than the Absence of Sun; nor water of Coldness, than its Distance from the Fire, because these are the genuine Products of ...

— Westminster Assembly (1643-1652)

Date: 1676

"Nature has her cheats, stums a brain, and puts sophisticate dullness often on the tasteless multitude for true wit and good humour"

— Etherege, Sir George (1636-1691/2)

Date: 1678

"The Interpreter answered; This Parlor is the heart of a Man that was never sanctified by the sweet Grace of the Gospel: The dust, is his Original Sin, and inward Corruptions that have defiled the whole Man; He that began to sweep at first, is the Law; but She that brought water, and did sprinkle...

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1678

"The Interpreter answered, This fire is the work of Grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts Water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1680

"'Tis an Error as groundless as Vulgar, to think that there goes no more to the furnishing a Poet, than a Wind-mill in the Head, a Stream of Tattle, and convenient Confidence; whereas no Exercise of the Soul requires a more compos'd Thought, more sparingness of Words, more Modesty and Caution in ...

— Tate, Nahum (c. 1652-1715)

Date: 1681

"The mind, that ocean where each kind / Does straight its own resemblance find, / Yet it creates, transcending these, / Far other worlds, and other seas"

— Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678)

Date: November, 1682

"In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep; / But found their line too short, the well too deep; / And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)