Date: 1708, 1714

"'Twas a sign that this Philosopher believ'd there was a good Stock of Visionary Spirit originally in Human Nature."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1708, 1714

"Something there will be of Extravagance and Fury, when the Ideas or Images receiv'd are too big for the narrow human Vessel to contain."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1709, 1714

"They may perhaps be Monsters, and not Divinitys, or Sacred Truths, which are kept thus choicely, in some dark Corner of our Minds: The Specters may impose on us, whilst we refuse to turn 'em every way, and view their Shapes and Complexions in every light."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1710, 1714

"There is no way of estimating manners or apprising the different humours, fancies, passions, and apprehensions of others without first taking an inventory of the same kind of goods within ourselves and surveying our domestic fund."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1710, 1714

"For without this Understanding, the Historian's Judgment will be very defective; the Politician's Views very narrow, and chimerical; and the Poet's Brain, however stock'd with Fiction, will be but poorly furnish'd; as in the sequel we shall make appear."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1710, 1714

"There is no way of estimating Manners, or apprizing the different Humours, Fancys, Passions and Apprehensions of others, without first taking an Inventory of the same kind of Goods within ourselves, and surveying our domestick Fund."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1754

"Sensation would be of little use to form the understanding, if we had no other faculty than mere passive perception; but without sensation these other faculties would have nothing to operate upon, reflection would have by consequence nothing to reflect upon, and it is by reflection that we multi...

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1794

"If our recollection or imagination be not a repetition of animal movements, I ask, in my turn, What is it? You tell me it consists of images or pictures of things. Where is this extensive canvas hung up? or where are the numerous receptacles in which those are deposited? or to what else in the a...

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1831

Anaxarchus when "ordered by Nicocreon, tyrant of Salamis, to be pounded in a mortar [...] in contempt of his mortal sufferings, exclaimed, 'Beat on, tyrant! thou dost but strike upon the case of Anaxarchus; thou canst not touch the man himself'"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1831

"The mind is so infinitely superior in character to this case of flesh that incloses it, that he cannot persuade himself that it and the body perish together"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)