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: 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,"

— 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."

— 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: 1709

"O! 'tis a thought would melt a rock, / And make a heart of iron move"

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1719

"He forms our generals for the field, / With all their dreadful skill; / Gives them his awful sword to wield, / And makes their hearts of steel."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1734

"Is then my heart to all the world beside / Softer than melting wax or summer snow, / But to myself harder than adamant?"

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)