Date: 1677

"Or else unto those Birds (aspiring) rare, / The Soul contemplative I may compare, / Of whom King David worthily attests, / That by the Holy Altar build their Nests: / So Meditation's said in holy Story, / To build her Nest about the Throne of Glory."

— Speed, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. 1679?)

Date: 1684

"For certainly there must be some change in our mind when we have some thoughts and then others, and, in fact, ideas of things we are not actually thinking about are in our minds as the shape of Hercules is in rough marble."

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Date: 1693

"When Reason with her Robes ascends the Throne, / And wisely all my scatter'd Thoughts calls home, / The Messenger is so divine, / Unto her Laws I must resign."

— Hawkshaw, Benjamin (1671/2-1738)

Date: 1693

"For should I let these Thoughts but rove / They'd fix upon Tyrannick Love."

— Hawkshaw, Benjamin (1671/2-1738)

Date: 1693

Thoughts may "transcend all the Bounds of Air, / And like a blazing Comet ... inflame my Sphere."

— Hawkshaw, Benjamin (1671/2-1738)

Date: 1692, 1702

"The Soul of Man comes into this World at least as Ill-informed of the Affairs of Grace, as those of Nature. It is in all respects, a Rasa tabula, a meer Blank, and hath need of being fill'd with every thing"

— Jurieu, Pierre (1637-1713); Fleetwood, William, Trans.