Date: May 10, 1704

"Thrice have I forced my imagination to take the tour of my invention, and thrice it has returned empty, the latter having been wholly drained by the following treatise."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"The whining passions and little starved conceits are gently wafted up by their own extreme levity to the middle region, and there fix and are frozen by the frigid understandings of the inhabitants."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"And whereas the mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, does never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low, of good and evil, his first flight of fancy commonly transports him to ideas of what is most perfect, finished, and exalted, till, having...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Nor shall it any ways detract from the just reputation of this famous sect that its rise and institution are owing to such an author as I have described Jack to be, a person whose intellectuals were overturned and his brain shaken out of its natural position, which we commonly suppose to be a di...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: September 6, 1695; 1708

"Mr. Molyneux's ingenious Question, of which you gave me an Account at Mr. Lukey's Yesterday, has run so much in my Mind ever since, that I could scarce drive it out of my Thoughts."

— Synge, Edward (1659-1741)

Date: From Tuesd. Sept. 13. to Thursd. Sept. 15. 1709

"I have often reflected, that there is a great Similitude in the Motions of the Heart in Mirth and in Sorrow; and I think the usual Occasion of the latter, as well as the former, is something which is sudden and unexpected."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: From Thursd. Nov. 24 to Saturd. Nov. 26. 1709

"I Have been this Evening recollecting what Passages (since I could first think) have left the strongest Impressions upon my Mind; and after strict Enquiry, I am convinced, that the Impulses I have received from Theatrical Representations, have had a greater Effect, than otherwise would have been...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1710, 1734

"For example, the will is termed the motion of the soul: this infuses a belief, that the mind of man is as a ball in motion, impelled and determined by the objects of sense, as necessarily as that is by the stroke of a racket."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: From Tuesday May 30. to Thursday June 1. 1710

"In a Word, the Beauties and the Charms of Nature and of Art court all my Faculties, refresh the Fibres of the Brain, and smooth every Avenue of Thought. What pleasing Meditations, what agreeable Wanderings of the Mind, and what delicious Slumbers, have I enjoyed here?"

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Thursday, March 22, 1711

"At such a time the Mind of the Prosperous Man goes, as it were, abroad, among things without him, and is more exposed to the Malignity."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)