Date: 1665

"And indeed, the Thoughts of many a Person, are oftentimes so active, and restless, that something or other they must, and will perpetually be doing; and like unruly Souldiers, if you have not a care to employ them well, they will employ themselves ill."

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

Date: 1693

"When sent from Heav'n a more than common Guest / Takes up his dwelling in a mortal Breast;"

— Hawkshaw, Benjamin (1671/2-1738)

Date: 1696

"I find the danger now: my Spirits start / At the alarm, and from all quarters come / To Man my Heart, the Citadel of love."

— Southerne, Thomas (1659-1746)

Date: 1700

"I cannot view you, Madam: For when you speak, all the Faculties of my charm'd Soul crowd to my attentive Ears; desert my Eyes, which gaze insensibly"

— Farquhar, George (1676/7-1707)

Date: 1701

"Man is a Creature of so mixed a Composure, and of a Frame so inconsistent and different from Itself, that it easily speaks his Affinity to the highest and meanest Beings; that is to say, he is made of Body and Soul, he is at once an Engine and an Engineer."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1701

"This may give him hopes, that tho' his Trunk return to its native Dust he may not all Perish, but the Inhabitant of it may remove to another Mansion; especially since he knows only Mechanically that they have, not Demonstratively how they have, even a present Union."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1704

"For, it is the opinion of choice virtuosi, that the brain is only a crowd of little animals, but with teeth and claws extremely sharp, and therefore cling together in the contexture we behold, like the picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like bees in perpendicular swarm upon a tr...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Now it usually happens that these active spirits, getting possession of the brain, resemble those that haunt other waste and empty dwellings, which for want of business either vanish and carry away a piece of the house, or else stay at home and fling it all out of the windows."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1709

"There croud into his mind the ideas which compose the visible man, in company with all the other ideas of sight perceived at the same time."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: Wednesday, April 4, 1711

"In fine, the whole Assembly is made up of absent Men, that is, of such Persons as have lost their Locality, and whose Minds and Bodies never keep Company with one another."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)