Date: 1665

"But as though grains of Sand and Ashes be a part, but of a despicable smallness, and very easie, and liable to be scatter'd, and blown away; yet the skilful Artificer, by a vehement Fire, brings Numbers of these to afford him that noble substance, Glass, by whose help we may both see our selves,...

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

Date: 1704

"Remark your commonest pretender to a light within, how dark, and dirty, and gloomy he is without; as lanterns which, the more light they bear in their bodies, cast out so much the more soot and smoke and fuliginous matter to adhere to the sides."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1710, 1734

"They indeed, who hold the soul of man to be only a thin vital flame, or system of animal spirits, make it perishing and corruptible as the body, since there is nothing more easily dissipated than such a being, which it is naturally impossible should survive the ruin of the tabernacle, wherein it...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: Wednesday, April 30, 1712

"That Devotion to his Mistress kindles in his Mind a general Tenderness, which exerts it self towards every Object as well as his Fair-one."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1713

"In a Glass-House, the Workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh Coals, which seems to disturb the Fire, but very much enlivens it. This seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the Passions, that the Mind may not languish."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: Saturday, Aug. 3, 1754; 1756

"As for Instance, when the Poet says of Dido, that she is devoured by an inward Flame."

— Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805)

Date: January 19, 1791

"It is that new invented virtue, which your masters canonize, that led their moral hero constantly to exhaust the stores of his powerful rhetoric in the expression of universal benevolence; whilst his heart was incapable of harbouring one spark of common parental affection."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: January 19, 1791

"You know them but at a distance, on the statements of those who always flatter the reigning power, and who, amidst their representations of the grievances, inflame your minds against those who are oppressed. These are amongst the effects of unremitted labour, when men exhaust their attention, bu...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1796

"Cold as ice themselves, they never could kindle in our breasts a spark of that zeal, which is necessary to a conflict with an adverse zeal; much less were they made to infuse into our minds that stubborn persevering spirit, which alone is capable of bearing up against those vicissitudes of fortu...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)