Date: 1702

"Vice is a Thief, a Traytor in the Mind, / Assassinates the Vitals of Mankind."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1704

"Those Ancient Men of Genius who rifled Nature by the Torch-Light of Reason even to her very Nudities, have been run a-ground in this unknown Channel; the Wind has blown out the Candle of Reason, and left them all in the Dark."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1704

"This is what I quote them for, and this is all my Argument demands; the deepest Search into the Region of Cause and Consequence, has found out just enough to leave the wisest Philosopher in the dark, to bewilder his Head, and drown his Understanding."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1704

"No Pen can describe it, no Tongue can express it, no Thought conceive it, unless some of those who were in the Extremity of it; and who, being touch'd with a due sense of the sparing Mercy of their Maker, retain the deep Impressions of his Goodness upon their Minds, tho' the Danger be past: and ...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: Tuesday, October 22, 1706

"Sometimes it is acted by the evil Spirit of general Vogue, and like a meer Possession 'tis hurry'd out of all manner of common Measures; to day it obeys the Course of things and submits to Causes and Consequences; to morrow it suffers Violence from the Storms and Vapours of Human Fancy, operated...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1710, 1797

"Like the soul in the body it [paper credit] actuates all substance, yet it is itself immaterial."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1710, 1797

"Reason, it is true, is dictator in the society of mankind; from her there ought to lie no appeal: but here we want a POPE in our philosophy, to be the infallible judge of what is, or is not reason."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: Wednesday, October 31, 1711

"You have, in my Opinion, raised a good presumptive Argument from the increasing Appetite the Mind has to Knowledge, and to the extending its own Faculties, which cannot be accomplished, as the more restrained Perfection of lower Creatures may, in the Limits of a short Life."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: Monday, March 3, 1712

"I can stifle any violent Inclination, and oppose a Torrent of Anger, or the Sollicitations of Revenge, with Success. But Indolence is a Stream which flows slowly on, but yet undermines the Foundation of every Virtue."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: Monday, March 3, 1712

"A Vice of a more lively Nature were a more desirable Tyrant than this Rust of the Mind, which gives a Tincture of its Nature to every Action of ones Life."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)