Date: 1710, 1714

"For Nature will not be mock'd. The Prepossession against her can never be very lasting. Her Decrees and Instincts are powerful. She has a strong Party abroad; and as strong a one within our-selves."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1711, 1714

"All is revolution in us."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1717

"But, they who have considered with care the foundation and circumstances of their actions, doubt of their freedom, and are even persuaded, that their reason and understanding are slaves that cannot resist the force which carries them along."

— Collins, Anthony (1676-1729)

Date: 1726

"The Year, yet pleasing, but declining fast, / Soft, o'er the secret Soul, in gentle Gales, / A Philosophic Melancholly breathes, / And bears the swelling Thought aloft to Heaven."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"NOW, giddy Youth, whom headlong Passions fire, / Rouse the wild Game, and stain the guiltless Grove, / With Violence, and Death; yet call it Sport."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"Whitening, the angry Billows rowl immense, / And roar their Terrors, thro' the shuddering Soul / Of feeble Man, amidst their Fury caught, / And, dash'd upon his Fate."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"O! teach me what is Good! teach me thy self! / Save me from Folly, Vanity and Vice, / From every low Pursuit! and feed my Soul, / With Knowledge, conscious Peace, and Vertue pure, / Sacred, substantial, never-fading Bliss!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"Society divine! Immortal Minds! / Still visit thus my Nights, for you reserv'd, / And mount my soaring Soul to Deeds like yours."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"Now, th'Eternal Scheme, / That Dark Perplexity, that Mystic Maze, / Which Sight cou'd never trace, nor Heart conceive, / To Reason's Eye, refin'd, clears up apace."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"E'en Light itself, which every thing displays, / Shone undiscover'd, till [Newton's] brighter mind / Untwisted all the shining robe of day."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)