Date: 1727

"But each Man's secret Standard in his Mind, / That casting Weight, Pride adds to Emptiness"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: March 13, 1727

"Must these like empty shadows pass, / Or forms reflected from a glass? / Or mere chimeras in the mind, / That fly, and leave no marks behind?"

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: March 13, 1727

"And is not virtue in mankind / The nutriment that feeds the mind; / Upheld by each good action past, / And still continued by the last?"

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: w. 1707, published 1728-9

Dulness is "the safe Opiate of the Mind."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1728, 1729, 1736

"A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead;] i. e. A trifling head, and a contracted heart,as the poet, book 4. describes the accomplished Sons of Dulness; of whom this is only an Image, or Scarecrow, and so stuffed out with these corresponding materials."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1728, 1729, 1736

"She form'd this image of well-bodied air, / With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head, / A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead, / And empty words she gave, and sounding strain, / But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733, 1736

"The ruling Passion conquers reason still."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733

"There St. John mingles with my friendly Bowl, / The Feast of Reason and the Flow of Soul."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733

"I nod in Company, I wake at Night, / Fools rush into my Head, and so I write."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733

"My head and heart thus flowing thro' my quill, / Verse-man or Prose-man, term me which you will."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)