Date: 1691

"Within the inner Closet of my Brain / Attend the nobler Members of my Train; / Invention, Master of my Mint, grows there, / And Memory, my faithful Treasurer."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"Hunger will caper over stone Walls, I might add, over Hills set upon Hills, and therefore did I chuse in Affliction rather to make my Brains my Exchequer, than (like a Modest Gentleman) to groan under the Slavery of a Blushing Temper."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1752

"'But you understand Human Nature to the Bottom,' answered Amelia;' and your Mind is a Treasury of all ancient and modern Learning.'"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1753

"This new domestic, whose name was Maurice, underwent, with great applause, the examination of our hero, who perceived in him, a fund of sagacity and presence of mind, by which he was excellently qualified for being the valet of an adventurer; he was therefore accommodated with a second hand suit...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1760-7

"Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their own weight."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1766

"And let me tell you, Sir, that I give you no small treasure, she has been celebrated for beauty it is true, but that is not my meaning, I give you up a treasure in her mind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1773

"Yet there is a wide distinction between the confidence which becomes a man, and the simplicity that disgraces a simpleton: he who never trusts is a niggard of his soul, who starves himself, and by whom no other is enriched; but he who gives every one his confidence, and every one his praise, squ...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"With regard to himself, however, he accepts of the common opinion, as a sort of coin, which passes current, though it is not always real, and often seems to yield up the conviction of his own mind in compliance to the general voice."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"Somebody, I think, has compared them to small pieces of coin, which, though of less value than the large, are more current amongst men; but the parallel fails in one respect: a thousand of those livres do not constitute a louis; and I have known many characters possessed of all tha...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1796

"While his fancy coined these ideas, he paced his cell with a disordered air."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)