Date: 1666

"O truly royal! who behold the law, / And rule of beings in your Maker's mind; / And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw, / To fit the levelled use of humankind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1667

"When shall these clogs of Sense and Fancy break, / That I may hear the God within me speak?"

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1667

"How vain a thing is Man, whose noblest part, / That Soul which through the World doth rome, / Traverses Heav'n, finds out the depth of Art, / Yet is so ignorant at home?"

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1667

"I wonder not to find those that know most, / Profess so much their Ignorance; / Since in their own Souls greatest Wits are lost, / And of themselves have scarce a glance."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1667

"A Soul self-mov'd which can dilate, contract, / Pierces and judges things unseen: / But this gross heap of Matter cannot act, / Unless impulsed from within."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1667

"So unconcern'd she lives, so much above / The Rubbish of a sordid Jail, / That nothing doth her Energy improve / So much as when those structures fail."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1667

"It is our narrow thoughts shorten these things, / By their companion Flesh inclin'd; / Which feeling its own weakness gladly brings / The same opinion to the Mind."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: November, 1682

"Dim, as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars / To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers, / Is reason to the soul; and as on high, / Those rolling fires discover but the sky / Not light us here; so reason's glimmering ray / Was lent not to assure our doubtful way, / But guide us upward to a better ...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

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)

Date: November, 1682

"Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll, / Without a centre where to fix the soul."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)