Date: 1698

"Our own Thoughts, and those of others, do, in all our Conversations, use to come to us, clad in Words: Whence it happens, that 'tis very hard, liquidly and clearly to strip the Sense from those Words; and to consider It, and nothing but It."

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"Expression is the dress of thought, and still / Appears more decent, as more suitable."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1717

"The nymph her graces here express'd may find, / And by this picture learn to dress her mind."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1713, 1719

"For in our Youth we commonly dress our Thoughts in the Mirrour of Self-Flattery, and expect that Heaven, Fortune, and the World, should cajole our Follies, as we do our own, and lay all Faults on others, and all Praise on our selves."

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: 1737

"So many things freely thrown out, such lengths of unreserv'd friendship, thoughts just warm from the brain, without any polishing or dress, the very dishabille of the understanding."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. 1737, published 1738

"But when no Prelate's Lawn with Hair-shirt lin'd, / Is half so incoherent as my Mind, / When (each Opinion with the next at strife, / One ebb and flow of follies all my Life) / I plant, root up, I build, and then confound, / Turn round to square, and square again to round."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)