Date: 1605
"For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable fo...
preview | full record— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)
Date: 1605, 1640
"Amongst the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another; even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which otherwise percase we could not so easily recover."
preview | full record— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)
Date: 1678
"A Weak mind complains before it is overtaken with evil, and as Birds are affrighted with the noise of the Sling, so the infirm soul anticipates its troubles by its own fearful apprehensions, and falls under them before they are yet arrived."
preview | full record— Wanley, Nathaniel (1634-1680)
Date: 1662, 1762
"Our soul is escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler: the snare is broken, and we are delivered."
preview | full record— The Church of England
Date: January 19, 1791
"But it is then, and basking in the sunshine of unmerited fortune, that low, sordid, ungenerous, and reptile souls swell with their hoarded poisons; it is then that they display their odious splendour, and shine out in full lustre of their native villainy and baseness."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)