Date: 1700, 1705

"Wit is a Standing-Army Government, / And Sense a sullen stubborn P---t."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: May 10, 1704

"But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others,...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1704

"All endeavours must be therefore used, either to divert, bind up, stupify, fluster, and amuse the senses, or else, to justle them out of their stations; and while they are either absent, or otherwise employed, or engaged in a civil war against each other, the spirit enters and performs ...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1713

When music plays, "Intestine war no more our Passions wage, / And giddy Factions hear away their rage."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. 1702, 1713

"Fair Ideas in full Glory shine, / Eternal Models of exalted Parts, / The Pride of Minds, and Conquerors of Hearts."

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)

Date: 1715-1720

"Vain Dreams of Conquest" may swell the haughty Mind

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1715-1720

" The haughtiest Hearts at length their Rage resign, / And Gifts can conquer ev'ry Soul but thine."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1717

"Bear unmov'd the wrongs of base mankind, / The last, and hardest, conquest of the mind"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. 1713-1718?, 1989

"If I cant have the pleasure to conquer yr heart / I shall have some at least in complaining."

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)

Date: 1719

"I found indeed some Intervals of Reflection, and the serious Thoughts did, as it were, endeavour to return again sometimes, but I shook them off, and rouz'd my self from them as it were from a Distemper, and applying my self to Drinking and Company, soon master'd the Return of those Fits, for so...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)