Date: 1688

"[C]urst Suspitions" may haunt the "tortur'd Mind"

— Ames, Richard (bap. 1664?, d. 1692)

Date: 1692

"Suspence that torture of the Mind, / Long had our Thoughts in doubts dark Cave confin'd"

— Ames, Richard (bap. 1664?, d. 1692)

Date: 1692

"The thinking States-man, when the News he hears, / How e're his Thought may be employ'd, In projects for his Countries good, / Now lays aside the weight of publick cares, / And with a Mind unbent, prepares / To share the common Joy, since now / In Mirth to Revel, Stoicks would allow, / The Plodd...

— Ames, Richard (bap. 1664?, d. 1692)

Date: 1693

"New-minted Mischeifs rumble in his brain, / Each false Stamp'd Coin is melted down again, / 'Till refin'd Fancy fix'd on Woman."

— Ames, Richard (bap. 1664?, d. 1692)

Date: 1700, 1705

"For Sense, like Water, is but Wit condense, / And Wit, like Air, is rarify'd from Sense."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1700, 1705

"Wit without Sense is like the Laughing-Evil, / And Sense unmix'd with Fancy is the D---l."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1700, 1705

"Wit, like the French, performs before it thinks, / And thoughtful Sense without Performance sinks."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1701

"He [Good King Bacchus] does the chaos of the head refine, / And atom-thoughts jump into words by wine"

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1701

"Their brain's so cool, their passion seldom burns; / For all's condens'd before the flame returns; The fermentation's of so weak a matter, / The humid damps the fume, and runs it all to water."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1706, 1709

"In vain the Harlot Pleasure spreads her Charms / To lull his Thoughts in Luxuries fair Lap / To sensual Ease, (the Bane of little Kings, / Monarchs whose waxen Images of Souls / Are moulded into Softness) still his Mind / Wears its own Shape."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)