Date: 1687

"This Heart of mine, now wreck'd upon despair, / Was once as free and careless as the Air; / In th' early Morning of my tender years, / E're I was sensible of Hopes and Fears, / It floated in a Sea of Mirth and Ease, / And thought the World was only made to please; / No adverse Wind had ever stop...

— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Not that I want a due respect to other Mens Opinions; but after all, the greatest reverence is due to Truth; and, I hope, it will not be thought arrogance, to say, That, perhaps, we should make greater progress in the discovery of rational and contemplative Knowledge, if we sought it in the Foun...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

Surveying the "Powers of our own Minds" is like fathoming "the depths of the Ocean": "'Tis of great use to the Sailor to know the length of his Line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the Ocean. 'Tis well he knows, that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such Places as are ...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1691

"I cannot conceive the true Cause hereof [that Men of Learning are uncouth in their discourse], unless it be, that as Plants are Choakt by over-much Moisture, and Lamps are Stifl'd with too much Oil; so are the Actions of the Mind overwhelm'd by over-abundance of Matter and Study."

— Blount, Thomas Pope, Sir (1649-1697)

Date: 1691

"Why just then, all of a sudden, before I cou'd say what's this, or knew where I was, my Noddle now swimming with a million of Fancies, (as I alwayes had a very working Brain,) and I not minding my way, in tumbled I into the River, hugging the waves so tenderly, you can't imagine."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"'Tis uncertain whether the Fellow I'm about telling you a merry Story of, had been Dancing at a May-pole or no, but sure enough he was got finely Fox'd some where or other i'the Strand, and staid at it till the Watch was set--and then homeward he Rambled as his brutish Carcase cou'd direct him, ...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"Thus might I have e'ne gone on to Doomsday without their minding a word I said, for by this time the Fumes of the Liquor, which it seems they had been tunning in all that day, conquer'd that little Reason they had left, and threw 'em all into a bruitish sleep."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"I was nothing but all Flame and Fire, and the red-hot Thoughts glared about my Brains at such a rate, and if visible, wou'd, I fancy, have made just such a dreadful Appearance as the Window of a Glass-house discovers in a dark Night--viz. a parcel of stragling fiery Globes marching about and hiz...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"But alas, I had not been sixty minutes Alphabetizing and sorting of Books before my old Rambling Maggot began to crawl and bite afresh; upon which I immediately grew as fickle and wavering as if I had drank Liquor distill'd from a Womans Brains; and nothing would satisfie me now till I saw the S...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"This Cobler having been drinking till his Brains were shipwrackt in a deluge of Canary, yet unable with all that Liquor to quench his Nose, which appeared so flaming, that when he was smoaking, it could not be discerned by the most critical Eye, at which end his Pipe burned with the more red-hot...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)