Date: 1654

"We often see stones hang with drops not from any innate moisture, but from a thick air about them; so may we sometime see marble-hearted sinners seem full of contrition, but it is not from any dew of grace within but from some black clouds that impends them, which produces these sweating effects."

— Bradstreet, Anne (1612-1672)

Date: 1667, 1710

"And there are very few that have any true Kindness for it, and thou knowest not the Worth of that Jewel, thy Soul; but here, here's a Friend, if thou wilt but leave it with him, he will take care of it, it shall not be marted away for nothing."

— Janeway, James (1636?-1674)

Date: 1697

"The Soul is placed in the Body like a rough Diamond and must be polish'd, or the lustre of it will never appear."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1706

"Till hard despair wring from the tyrant's soul / The iron tears out."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1706

"The Marble Heart groans with an inward Wound: / Blaspheming Souls of harden'd Steel / Shriek out amaz'd at the new Pangs they feel, / And dread the Eccho's of the Sound."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1706, 1709

"O 'tis a Thought would melt a Rock, / And make a Heart of Iron move."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1706, 1709

"COME let me Love: or is my Mind / Harden'd to Stone, or froze to Ice?"

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1707

"Our Heart, that flinty stubborn thing, / That Terrors cannot move, / That fears no threatenings of his Wrath, / Shall be dissolv'd by Love."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1709

"O stamp upon my Soul / Some blissful Image of the fair Deceas'd / To call my Passions and my Eyes aside / From the dear breathless Clay."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: Monday, March 3, 1712

"A Vice of a more lively Nature were a more desirable Tyrant than this Rust of the Mind, which gives a Tincture of its Nature to every Action of ones Life."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)