Date: 1701

"Their brain's so cool, their passion seldom burns; / For all's condens'd before the flame returns; The fermentation's of so weak a matter, / The humid damps the fume, and runs it all to water."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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: May 10, 1704

"Besides, there is something individual in human minds that easily kindles at the accidental approach and collision of certain circumstances, which, though of paltry and mean appearance, do often flame out into the greatest emergencies of life."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1712

"The fair Sicilians now thy Soul inflame; / Why was I born, ye Gods, a Lesbian Dame?"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

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: 1715

"THEN as to Correction, the Heart being hardned, as before, by Opinion and Practice, and especially in a Belief that he ought not to be corrected, the Rod of Correction has a different Effect; for as the Blow of a Stripe makes an Impression on the Heart of a Child, as stamping a Seal does upon th...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1715-1720

"'Tis however remarkable that his Fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discover'd immediately at the beginning of his Poem in its fullest Splendor: It grows in the Progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on Fire like a Chariot-Wheel, by its own Rapidity."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1719

"I bad him go to the Tree, and bring me Word if he could see there plainly what they were doing; he did so, and came immediately back to me, and told me they might be plainly view'd there; that they were all about their Fire, eating the Flesh of one of their Prisoners; and that another lay bound...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1719

"As long as I kept up my daily Tour to the Hill to look out, so long also I kept up the Vigour of my Design, and my Spirits seem'd to be all the while in a suitable Form for so outragious an Execution as the killing twenty or thirty naked Savages, for an Offence which I had not at all entred into...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"It is without Doubt, that Fancy and Imagination form a world of Apparitions in the Minds of Men and Women; (for we must not exclude the Ladies in this Part, whatever we do) and People go away as thoroughly possess'd with the Reality of having seen the Devil, as if they convers'd Face to Face wit...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)