Date: 1657

The fancy is a "Boundlesse, restlesse faculty, free from all engagements, diggs without spade, sails without Ships, Flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed, in a moment striding from the Center to the circumference of the world, by a kind of omnipotency creating and ...

— Poole, Joshua (c.1615–c.1656)

Date: 1691

"Thirdly, Let us hence duly learn to prize and value our Souls; is the Body such a rare Piece, what this is the Soul? the Body is but the Husk or Shell, the Soul is the Kernel; the Body is but the Cask, the Soul the precious Liquor contained in it; the Body is but the Cabinet; the Soul the Jewel;...

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627–1705)

Date: 1691

"This Voyage round the World was made in the Ship of Fancy, which every one knows, like the Cossaks Boats, sails as well by Land as Water.--And now I hope you are satisfied."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1719

"It is as impossible as needless, to set down the innumerable Crowd of Thoughts that whirl'd through that great Thorowfair of the Brain, the Memory, in this Night's Time."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: Monday, May 25, 1724

"The Mind of Will. Weathercock is like the Sail of a great Ship, that has Room, to contain much Wind; but, having none, of its own producing, is swell'd out, by Turns, from all the Quarters of the Compass."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1731

"And therefore it [the soul] is not present with it only as a Mariner with a Ship, that is, meerly Locally, or knowingly and unpassionately present, they still continuing two distinct Things; but it is vitally united to it, and passionately present with it. And therefore when the Body is hurt, th...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1738

A person may be called the same person by "a continual Superaddition of the like Consciousness ... Just as a Ship is called the same Ship, after the whole Substance is changed by frequent Repairs; or a River is called the same River, though the Water of it be every Day new."

— Clarke, Samuel (1675-1729)

Date: 1826

A woman's "reason [may be] ship-wrecked upon her passion, and the hulk of her understanding lies thumping against the rock of her fury"

— King, Thomas (1730-1805)

Date: 2000

"It's the medium-sized thoughts that jump ship in an emergency."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)