Date: 1709, 1714

"They who overlook the main Springs of Action, and despise the Thought of Numbers and Proportion in a Life at large, will in the mean Particulars of it, be no less taken up, and engag'd; as either in the Study of common Arts, or in the Care and Culture of mere mechanick Beautys. The Models of Hou...

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

Date: 1709, 1714

"The Specter still will haunt us, in some Shape or other: and when driven from our cool Thoughts, and frighted from the Closet, will meet us even at Court, and fill our Heads with Dreams of Grandure, Titles, Honours, and a false Magnificence and Beauty; to which we are ready to sacrifice our high...

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

Date: 1713

"What an April weather in the mind!"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: July 23, 1703; 1714

"Time, I daily find, blots out apace the little Stock of my Mind, and has disabled me from furnishing all that I would willingly contribute to the Memory of that Learned Man.."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: August 18, 1716; 1735

"If Momus’s project had taken, of having windows in our breasts, I should be for carrying it further, and making those windows casements: that while a man showed his heart to all the world, he might do something more for his friends, e’en take it out, and trust to their handling."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"So many things freely thrown out, such lengths of unreserv'd friendship, thoughts just warm from the brain, without any polishing or dress, the very dishabille of the understanding."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

""Alas, my soul! thou pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting it! whither art thou flying? to what unknown scene? all trembling, fearful, and pensive! what now is become of thy former wit and humour? thou shalt jest and be gay no more."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"I have been lying in wait for my own imagination this week and more, and watching what thoughts came up in the whirl of the fancy, that were worth communicating to you in a letter."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"That man makes a mean figure in the eye of reason, who is measuring syllables and coupling rhimes, when he should be mending his own soul and securing his own immortality."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"My faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no dispraise to me that they will not: the cleanness and purity of one's mind is never better proved, than in discovering its own faults at first view; as when a stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)