Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623
"Her sighs will make a batt'ry in his breast, / Her tears will pierce into a marble heart."
preview | full record— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Date: 1689
And yet there is, there is one prize / Lock'd in an adamantine Breast; / Storm that then, Love, if thou be'st wise, / A Conquest above all the rest, / Her Heart, who binds all Hearts in chains, / Castanna's Heart untouch'd remains."
preview | full record— Cotton, Charles (1630-1687)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"Earthly minds, like mud-walls, resist the strongest batteries: And though perhaps sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, and keep out the enemy truth, that would captivate or disturb them."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"Syllogism, at best, is but the Art of fencing with the little Knowledge we have, without making any Addition to it: And if a Man should employ his Reason all this way, he will not doe much otherwise than he, who having got some Iron out of the Bowels of the Earth, should have it beaten up all in...
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1719-1720, 1725
"Oh, Melliora! didst thou but know the thousandth Part of what this Moment I endure, the strong Convulsions of my warring Thoughts, thy Heart, steel'd as it is, and frosted round with Virtue, wou'd burst its icy Shield, and melt in Tears of Blood, to pity me."
preview | full record— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)
Date: February 22, 1723
"I thought my heart was arm'd with adamant / Against remorse, but nature fools me now; / A faint cold shiv'ring seizeth every limb."
preview | full record— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)
Date: 1745
"Imagination is the Paphian shop, / Where feeble Happiness, like Vulcan, lame, / Bids foul Ideas, in their dark recess, / And hot as hell, (which kindled the black fires,) / With wanton art, those fatal arrows form / Which murder all thy time, health, wealth, and fame."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1745
"Wouldst thou receive them, other Thoughts there are, / On angel-wing, descending from above, / Which these, with art Divine, would counterwork, / And form celestial armour for thy peace."<
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1749
Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek authors "elevate the Mind, and steel and harden it against the capricious Invasions of Fortune."
preview | full record— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)
Date: 1758
"COME, Epictetus, arm my breast / With thy impenetrable steel, / No more the wounds of grief to feel, / Nor mourn, by others' woes deprest."
preview | full record— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)