Date: 1709, 1810

"Never, never would she [the mind] buy / Indian dust, or Tyrian dye, / Never trade abroad for more, / If she saw her native store, / If her inward worth were known / She might ever live alone."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1719

"These were the Subject of the first Night's Cogitation, after I was come home again, while the Apprehensions which had so over-run my Mind were fresh upon me, and my Head was full of Vapours, as above."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: March, 1722

"[T]he many dismal Objects, which happened everywhere as I went about the Streets, had fill'd my Mind with a great deal of Horror, for fear of the Distemper it self, which was indeed, very horrible in it self, and in some more than in others, the swellings which were generally in the Neck, or Gro...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"Homer's Notion of the State of the Dead, was something like the ancient Philosophy of the Aegyptians, which gave the Soul a Shape like the Body, and that it was only a Receptacle of the Mind; the Mind they made to be the sublime and superior Part, and that only."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: June 22, 1731

"A heavy Melancholy clouds my Spirits; my Imagination is fill'd with gashly Forms of dreary Graves, and Bodies chang'd by Death,--when the pale lengthen'd Visage attracks each weeping Eye,--and fills the musing Soul, at once, with Grief and Horror, Pity and Aversion."

— Lillo, George (1691/3-1739)

Date: 1734

"Search well, my soul, thro' all the dark recesses / Of nature and self-love, the plies, the folds, / And hollow winding caverns of the heart, / Where flattery hides our sins."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1735

"Her lovely Mind shines chearful thro' her Face, / A sacred Lamp in a fair Crystal Case."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: 1741

"Use all Diligence to acquire and treasure up a large Store of Ideas and Notions: Take every Opportunity to add something to your Stock; and by frequent Recollection fix them in your memory: Nothing tends to confirm and enlarge the Memory like a frequent Review of its Possessions."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Where the Memory has been almost constantly employing itself in scraping together new Acquirements, and where there has not been a Judgment sufficient to distinguish what Things were fit to be recommended and treasured up in the Memory, and what things were idle, useless or needless, the Mind ha...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"A few useful Things perhaps, mixed and confounded with many Trifles and all manner of Rubbish fill up their Memories, and compose their intellectual Possessions. 'Tis a great Happiness therefore to distinguish things aright, and to lay up nothing in the Memory but what has some just Value in it,...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)