Date: 1684

"My grateful Thoughts so throng to get abroad, / They over-run each other in the crowd: / To you with hasty flight they take their way, / And hardly for the dress of words will stay."

— Oldham, John (1653-1683)

Date: 1710, 1714

"You would wonder to hear how close he pushes matters and how thoroughly he carries on the business of self-dissection. By virtue of this soliloquy, he becomes two distinct persons. He is pupil and preceptor. He teaches and he learns."

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

Date: 1710, 1714

"So that, if there be no certain inspector or auditor established within us to take account of these opinions and fancies in due form and minutely to animadvert upon their several growths and habits, we are as little like to continue a day in the same will as a tree, during the summer, in the sam...

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

Date: 1710, 1714

"It appears besides, like a kind of Pedantry, to be thus magisterial with our-selves; thus strict over our Imaginations, and with all the airs of a real Pedagogue to be sollicitously taken up in the four Care and Tutorage of so many boyish Fancys, unlucky Appetites and Desires, which are perpetua...

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

Date: 1710, 1714

"For Appetite, which is elder Brother to Reason, being the Lad of stronger Growth, is sure, on every contest, to take the advantage of drawing all to his own side."

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

Date: 1710, 1714

"And Will, so highly boasted, is but at best, a Foot-Ball or Top between these Youngsters [Appetite and Reason], who prove very unfortunately match'd; till the youngest, instead of now and then a Kick or Lash bestow'd to little purpose, forsakes the Ball or Top it-self, and begins to lay about hi...

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

Date: 1710, 1714

"And here it is that our Sovereign Remedy and Gymnastick Method of Soliloquy takes its Rise: when by a certain powerful Figure of inward Rhetorick, the Mind apostrophizes its own Fancys, raises'em in their proper Shapes and Personages, and addresses 'em familiarly, without the least Ceremony or R...

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

Date: 1710, 1714

"Those on the side of the elder Brother Appetite, are strangely subtile and insinuating. They have always the Faculty to speak by Nods and Winks. By this practice they conceal half their meaning, and like modern Politicians pass for deeply wise, and adorn themselves with the finest Pretexts and m...

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

Date: 1710, 1714

"Whatever we were employ'd in, whatever we set about; if once we had acquir'd the habit of this Mirrour; we shou'd, by virtue of the double Reflection, distinguish our-selves into two different Partys."

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

Date: 1710, 1714

"In reality, has not every Fancy a like Privilege of passing; if any single one be admitted upon its own Authority? And what must be the Issue of such an Oeconomy, if the whole fantastick Crew be introduc'd, and the Door refus'd to none?"

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