Date: c. 1603

"Just when the human mind, borne thither by some favouring gale, had found rest in a little truth, this man presumed to cast the closest fetters on our understandings."

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1615

"Go too then, is not he said to know himself, who can tell how to temper and order the state and condition of his mind, how to appease those civil tumults within himself, by the storms and waves whereof he is pitifully tossed, and how to suppress and appease those varieties of passions wherewith ...

— Crooke, Helkiah (1576-1648)

Date: 1620

"Lastly, knowing how much the sight of man's mind is distracted by experience and history, and how hard it is at the first (especially for minds either tender or preoccupied) to become familiar with nature, I not unfrequently subjoin observations of my own, being as the first offers, inclinations...

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1660, 1676

"In these men the principles are holy, the instruction perfect, the law remaining, the perswasions uncancelled; but against all this torrent there is a whirlwind of passions, and filthy resolutions, and wilfulness, which corrupt the heart, while as yet the head is uncorrupted in the direct rules ...

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)

Date: 1664

"To this I answer, that do but intensly observe any one of the former spots or clouds, and you shall see it go quite along from the tail to the head, keeping alwayes an equal distance from the precedent and subsequent spot: so that it is far more ingenious to believe it to be a gale of Animal Spi...

— Power, Henry (1623-1668)

Date: 1673

" For tho the adulterations of art, can represent in the same Face beauty in one position, and deformity in another, yet nature is more sincere, and never meant a serene and clear forhead, should be the frontispiece to a cloudy tempestuous heart."

— Allestree, Richard (1611/2-1681)

Date: 1674

"This Glandule which he supposeth to be so easily flexible and yielding to contrary impulses, is not loosely suspended, but fixed: so that whoever hath once beheld the solid basis, strong consistence, and firm connexion thereof, will hardly ever be brought to allow it capable of any impulse to ei...

— Charleton, Walter (1620-1707)

Date: 1682

"Betwixt violent Passion, and a Fluctuation, or Wambling of the Mind, there is such a Difference, as betwixt the Agitation of a Storm, and the Nauseous Sickness of a Calm."

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"The grand Instruments by which the Understanding works, are Memory and Invention: Now, since these Faculties have their foundation in the sensitive Capacity, as this Prop is withdrawn, the Understanding must of Consequence be more clouded and obscure."

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"A Man on the Rack, is not at liberty to lay by the Idea of pain, and divert himself with other Contemplations: And sometimes a boisterous Passion hurries our Thoughts, as a Hurricane does our Bodies, without leaving us the liberty of thinking on other things, which we would rather chuse."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)