Date: 1603

"O wretched state, O bosom black as death, / O limèd soul that, struggling to be free, / Art more engaged!"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1603

"Haste, haste me to know it, that with wings as swift / As meditation or the thoughts of love / May sweep to my revenge."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1603

"Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your / dull ass will not mend his pace with beating."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1664

"But that benefit which I consider most in it [rhyme], because I have not seldom found it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the fancy: for imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless, that, like an high-ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: Jun 12, 1668; 1671

"'Tis so wild [Wildblood's heart], that the Lady who has it in her keeping, would be glad she were well rid on't: it does so flutter about the Cage. 'Tis a meer Bajazet; and if it be not let out the sooner, will beat out the brains against the Grates."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: Jun 12, 1668; 1671

"But is not your heart of the nature of those Birds that breed in one Countrie, and goe to winter in another?"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: November 1672, 1673

"Ay, ay, when the love is once come so far, that Spiritual Mind will never leave pulling, and pulling, till it has drawn the beastly body after it."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: November 4, 1672, 1673

"Thou Live, and yet speak against Drinking, the very thing that distinguishes the Life of Man from that of a Beast! Why, 'tis the onely Spur of Wit and Reason; I have heard more new thoughts in Drinking three hours, then the best Modern Play can furnish you with; Therefore if thou would'st Live, ...

— Payne, Henry [alias Henry Nevill] (d. 1705?)

Date: March 12, 1673

"I'le keep my Soul free as the Bird that flyes i'th Aire, / I'le ne'r love one, till I of all besides Despair."

— Ravenscroft, Edward (c.1650- c.1700)

Date: 1676

"Sorrow and remorse gnaw [the] soul"

— Etherege, Sir George (1636-1691/2)