Date: 1684

"Examine how your Humour is inclin'd, / And which the Ruling Passion of your Mind"

— Dillon, Wentworth, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1637-1685)

Date: 1696

"Tho' she be / A Slave, her Mind is free, and shou'd consent."

— Southerne, Thomas (1659-1746)

Date: 1696

"Nay, then it must be she: it is Imoinda: My Heart confesses her, and leaps for joy, / To welcome her to her own Empire here."

— Southerne, Thomas (1659-1746)

Date: 1696

"Here I reign / In full delights, in Joys to Pow'r unknown; / Your Love my Empire, and your Heart my Throne."

— Southerne, Thomas (1659-1746)

Date: 1726

"'Twould be a bad World with most of us, if Reason were always to rule."

— Southerne, Thomas (1659-1746)

Date: 1744

"I do verily think there is not any other medicine whatsoever so effectual to restore a crazy constitution, and cheer a dreary mind, or so likely to subvert that gloomy empire of the spleen (Sect. 103) which tyrannizeth over the better sort (as they are called) of these free nations, and maketh t...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: October, 1759

"Of beasts, it is confessed, the ape / Comes nearest us in human shape; / Like man he imitates each fashion, / And malice is his ruling passion; / But both in malice and grimaces / A courtier any ape surpasses"

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"FORTUNE has made me the slave of another, but nature and inclination render me entirely subservient to you; a tyrant commands my body, but you are master of my heart."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"You would fondly persuade me that my former lessons still influence your conduct, and yet your mind seems not less enslaved than your body."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: w. 1764, published 1820

"Yet, why repine? What, though by bonds confined, / Should bonds enslave the vigour of the mind?"

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)