Date: 1733-4

"Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; / Reason's comparing balance rules the whole."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"Strong grows the Virtue with his nature mix'd; / The dross cements what else were refin'd, / And in one interest body acts with mind."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1735

"A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find, / But each man's secret standard in his mind, / That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, / This, who can gratify? For who can guess?"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"So many things freely thrown out, such lengths of unreserv'd friendship, thoughts just warm from the brain, without any polishing or dress, the very dishabille of the understanding."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737, 1743

"The best way to prove the clearness of our mind, is by shewing its Faults; as when a Stream discovers the Dirt at the bottom, it convinceth us of the transparency and purity of the Water."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737, 1743

"We should manage our Thoughts in composing a Poem, as Shepherds do their Flowers in making a Garland; first select the Choicest, and then dispose them in the most proper places, where they give a Lusture to each other: Like the Feathers in Indian Crowns, which are so managed that every one refle...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. 1737, published 1738

"A Voice there is, that whispers in my ear, / ('Tis Reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear)."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. 1737, published 1738

"Long, as to him who works for debt, the Day; / Long as the Night to her whose love's away; / Long as the Year's dull circle seems to run, / When the brisk Minor pants for twenty-one; / So slow th' unprofitable Moments roll, / That lock up all the Functions of my soul; / That keep me from Myself;...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1743

"We hang one jingling padlock on the mind"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1748

"[B]ut now that I looked upon myself as a murderer, it is impossible to express the terrors of my imagination, which was incessantly haunted by the image of the deceased, and my bosom stung with the most exquisite agonies, of which I saw no end."

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)