Date: 1717, 1736

"Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age, / Dull sullen pris'ners in the body's cage."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1717, 1736

"Dim lights of life that burn a length of years, / Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1717, 1736

"Like Eastern Kings a lazy state they keep, / And close confin'd in their own palace sleep."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1723

In one's Garret-Closet one's Muse may "take Possession": "Poetry being one of those subtle Devils, that if driven out by never so many firm Purposes, good Resolutions, Aversion to that Poverty it intails upon its Adherents; yet it will always return and find a Passage to the Heart, Brain, ...

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: 1723

"Mine [heart] open lies, without the least Defence; / No Guard of Art; but its own Innocence; / Under which Fort it could fierce Storms endure: / But from thy Wit I find no Fort secure."

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: 1728, 1729, 1736

"She form'd this image of well-bodied air, / With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head, / A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead, / And empty words she gave, and sounding strain, / But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"The old project of a window in the bosom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our case, while you are so far separated from me, and so long."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1773

"A thought, enbosom'd in this heart's recess / Shou'd, rising into act--Ah spare the rest!"

— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)

Date: 1793

"I must consider what's to be done--and in this room my thoughts are too confined to reflect."

— Inchbald [née Simpson], Elizabeth (1753-1821)

Date: 2005

"Every competence, deep down in the silence of your interiority, has first to come from the outside, to be slowly sunk in and deposited into some well-constructed cellar whose doors have then to be carefully sealed."

— Latour, Bruno (b. 1947)