Date: 1700

"Affliction, the sincerest Friend, the frankest Monitor, the best Instructer and indeed the only useful School that Women are ever put to, rouses her understanding, opens her Eyes, fixes her Attention, and diffuses such a Light, such a Joy into her Mind, as not only Informs her better, but Entert...

— Astell, Mary (1666–1731)

Date: 1700

"She will discern a time when her Sex shall be no bar to the best Employments, the highest Honor; a time when that distinction, now so much us'd to her Prejudice, shall be no more, but provided she is not wanting to her self, her Soul shall shine as bright as the greatest Heroe's."

— Astell, Mary (1666–1731)

Date: 1705, 1712

"If Reason must not judge of Faith's true light, / How came our Guides to know the wrong from right, / Or, how their rev'rend Heads distinguish plain, / Betwixt the Bible and the Alchoran."

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1705, 1712

"Reason's the heav'nly Ray that lights the Soul, / And the Faith dark that does its Power controul."

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"Just so the Head of Man contains within / The Intellect, with Rays and Light Divine."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"The Heart, the Center of the manly Breast, / Just like the Sun, in lovely Purple drest, / Diffuses all the Liquid Crimson round, / Whence Life, and Vigour, Heat and Strength abound."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"And as great Phoebus sometimes rages high, / And scorches with his Beams the sultry Sky: / So when the Heart with Rage, or flaming Ire, / Grows warm, or burns with Love's consuming Fire: / The catching Virals spread the Flames afar."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"Black Night comes on, and interrupts the Day, / E'er it can chase the Mists and Fogs away; / The Dregs of Flesh and Drossy Lees, o'errun / The Soul, and weigh the strugling Spirit down:"

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1722

"Or that as the Rays of Light from the Sun are instantly transmitted to all the sublunary Parts of the great World; so hence the Sensitivum Quid, in like Manner, through the nervous Tubes, having here their Origin, should as suddenly as those Rays darted from that great Luminary, be likewi...

— Turner, Daniel (1667-1741)

Date: February 3, 1788

"The spirit of the Gospel 'proclaims liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound:' but these men rivet the chains of slavery; 'the iron enters into the Negro's soul,' while while his mind is left in all the darkness of ignorance, without one ray of those comforts ...

— Agutter, William (1758-835)