Date: 1654

"The eyes and the ears are the inlets or doors of the soul, through which innumerable objects enter."

— Bradstreet, Anne (1612-1672)

Date: 1654

"The certainty that that time will come, together with the uncertainty, how, where, and when, should make us so to number our days to apply our hearts to wisdom, that when we are put out of these houses of clay we may be sure of an everlasting habitation that fades not away."

— Bradstreet, Anne (1612-1672)

Date: c. 1680

"The Vitall Spirits apprehend thereby / Exposde to danger great suburbs ly, / The which they do desert, and speedily / The Fort of Life the Heart, they Fortify, / The Heart beats up still by her Pulse to Call / Out of the outworks her train Souldiers all / Which quickly come hence."

— Taylor, Edward (1642-1729)

Date: August 4, 1778

"Behold! the soul shall waft away, / Whene'er we come to die, / And leave its cottage made of clay, / In twinkling of an eye."

— Hammon, Jupiter (1711-c.1800)

Date: 1787

"Again, when some desires retire, there are others akin to them, which grow up, and through inattention to the father's instructions, become both many and powerful, draw towards intimacies among themselves, and generate a multitude, seize the citadel or the soul of the youth, finding it evacuated...

— Adams, John (1735-1826)

Date: 1791, 1794

"'I cannot believe it possible,' said Montraville, 'that a mind once so pure as Charlotte Temple's, should so suddenly become the mansion of vice."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1799

The mind may be a theater "of discord and agony"

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

"My understanding was bemazed, and my senses were taught to distrust their own testimony"

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

"I endeavoured to shut out phantoms of the dying Wallace, and to forget the spectacle of domestic woes."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

"Immured in these dreary meditations, the night passed away."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)