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Date: 1657

The fancy is a "Boundlesse, restlesse faculty, free from all engagements, diggs without spade, sails without Ships, Flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed, in a moment striding from the Center to the circumference of the world, by a kind of omnipotency creating and ...

— Poole, Joshua (c.1615–c.1656)

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Date: May 10, 1704

"But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others,...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: 1705

"This Virtue is a Gift of Piety, a Sweetness of Spirit; for Clemency is of an Heroick Essence; and the Defection of that Active and Unbridled Passion, which oppugns it, and seems to check it, is the most Wonderful Effect, that they who exercise this Virtue, are able to produce, and the Victory go...

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

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Date: 1718

"Repeated Prostitutions conquer Shame, / Assure the Face, and struggling Reason tame."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1745

"Wouldst thou receive them, other Thoughts there are, / On angel-wing, descending from above, / Which these, with art Divine, would counterwork, / And form celestial armour for thy peace."<

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1755

"When valour preys on reason / It eats the sword it fights with"

— Shakespeare [from Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language]

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Date: 1762-3

"[T]he five senses in alliance [may] / To Reason hurl a proud defiance, / And, though oft conquer'd, yet unbroke, / Endeavour to throw off that yoke / Which they a greater slavery hold / Than Jewish bondage was of old"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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Date: 1762-3

"This glorious system form'd for man / To practise when and how he can, / If the five senses in alliance / To Reason hurl a proud defiance, / And, though oft conquer'd, yet unbroken, / Endeavour to throw off that yoke / Which they a greater slavery hold / Than Jewish bondage was of old."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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Date: 1790

"The passions join the fierce invading host; / And I and virtue are o'erwhelm'd and lost-- / Passions that in a martingale should move; / Wild horses loosen'd by the hands of Love."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

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Date: 1814, 1816, 1896

"Pride, panting, still, for some superior sway-- / Lust, prowling, like a savage Beast, for prey-- / Dark Passions, propagating feuds, and strife, / Lay waste, or swallow up, the sweets of Life."

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.