Date: May 10, 1704

"Whether Things that have Place in the Imagination, may not as properly be said to exist, as those that are seated in the Memory: which may be justly held in the affirmative, and very much to the advantage fo the former, since it is acknowledged to be the Womb of Things, and the other allowed to ...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"And indeed it seems not unreasonable that books, the children of the brain, should have the honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants of quality."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Nor is mankind so much to blame in his choice thus determining him, if we consider that the debate merely lies between things past and things conceived, and so the question is only this: whether things that have place in the imagination may not as properly be said to exist as those that are seat...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Besides, the eyes of the understanding see best when those of the senses are out of the way, and therefore blind men are observed to tread their steps with much more caution, and conduct, and judgment than those who rely with too much confidence upon the virtue of the visual nerve, which every l...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"To this end I have some time since, with a world of pains and art, dissected the carcass of human nature, and read many useful lectures upon the several parts, both containing and contained, till at last it smelt so strong I could preserve it no longer."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1704

"Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their be...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1725

"No, said Octavio, if thou art Clara, thou art still the only Creature upon Earth that can give relief to my distracted Mind and wounded Heart; thy Wrongs have cost me too many Months repose, and I have given up my self too much to the thoughts of thee, to slight or despise thee now I have found ...

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1727

Men's Reason "tyes them down to Rules," while women, "like Sampson break the trifling Twine and laugh at every Obstacle that would oppose [their] pleasure"

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1760-7

"That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--tra...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

Wit and judgment "in this world never go together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other as wide as east is from west.--So, says Locke,--so are farting and hickuping, say I."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)