Date: 1682

"'Tis not a Flash of Fancy which sometimes / Dasling our Minds, sets off the slightest Rimes; / Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done; / True Wit is everlasting, like the Sun; / Which though sometimes beneath a cloud retir'd, / Breaks out again, and is by all admir'd."

— Sheffield, John, first duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647-1721)

Date: 1692

"We Truth by a Refracted ray / View, like the Sun at Ebb of day: / Whom the gross, treacherous Atmosphere / Makes where it is not, to appear."

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

Date: 1700

"Affliction, the sincerest Friend, the frankest Monitor, the best Instructer and indeed the only useful School that Women are ever put to, rouses her understanding, opens her Eyes, fixes her Attention, and diffuses such a Light, such a Joy into her Mind, as not only Informs her better, but Entert...

— Astell, Mary (1666–1731)

Date: 1700

"She will discern a time when her Sex shall be no bar to the best Employments, the highest Honor; a time when that distinction, now so much us'd to her Prejudice, shall be no more, but provided she is not wanting to her self, her Soul shall shine as bright as the greatest Heroe's."

— Astell, Mary (1666–1731)

Date: 1701, 1704

"We may the conclude, that whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive is true, and that as long as we have Light before us, and assent to nothing but what we have a clear view and perception of, 'tis impossible we should err, or judge amiss"

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

Date: 1701, 1704

"And indeed after all, we have no other reason to think any Proposition true in any of the Sciences, but only because we clearly perceive that it is so, and it shines out upon our Minds with and unquestionable and irresistable Light."

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

Date: 1701, 1704

"The application of our Thoughts to other Subjects is like looking upon the Rays of the Sun as it shines to us from a Wall, or upon the Image of it as it returns from a Watry Mirrour, but this is looking up directly against the Fons veri lucidus, the bright Source of Intellectual Light a...

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

Date: 1705, 1712

"If Reason must not judge of Faith's true light, / How came our Guides to know the wrong from right, / Or, how their rev'rend Heads distinguish plain, / Betwixt the Bible and the Alchoran."

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1705, 1712

"Reason's the heav'nly Ray that lights the Soul, / And the Faith dark that does its Power controul."

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"Just so the Head of Man contains within / The Intellect, with Rays and Light Divine."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)