Date: 1610

Man "into himself can draw / All, all his faith can swallow, or reason chaw ... All the round world, to man is but a pill."

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1662

"Flowers, rivers, woods, the pleasant air and wind, / With Sacred thoughts, do feed my serious mind."

— Watkyns, Rowland (c. 1614-1664)

Date: 1667

Conscience "is a cordial Electuary: / And very many good ingredients go / Therein, Meat, Drink, Sleep, Ease, Refreshment too.

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1667

"Good Conscience on God it self can roul; / 'Tis Aquavitæ to the swouning soul."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1667

"As a good Conscience; this is they say / A constant Feast; who hath a Conscience good, / Fares well although he have no other Food."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"But knowledge is as food, and needs no less / Her temperance over appetite, to know / In measure what the mind may well contain; / Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns / Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move / Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird / Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid / Tunes her nocturnal note."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1681

The Soul "sup[s] above, and cannot stay / To bait so long upon the way"

— Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678)

Date: 1701

"And if a bottle does their brains refine, / It makes their wit as sparkling as their wine."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1705, 1712

"[W]ise Men on sound Reason ground Belief: / How that they find what for the Soul is good, / As by their Smell and Taste they judge their Food; / For who but each Man's Reason ought to try / 'Tis Faith, who must be sav'd or damn'd thereby."

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)