Date: 1660, 1676

"For a scrupulous conscience does not take away the proper determination of the understanding; but it is like a Woman handling of a Frog or a Chicken, which, all their friends tell them, can do them no hurt, and they are convinced in reason that they cannot, they believe it and know it ;...

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)

Date: 1665

"Which last Expression suits very well with the present case, since, when a pious Soul is once got upon the wing of Contemplation, she must descend and stoop to exchange her converse with Heavenly objects, for one with Earthly vanities, and much more must she debase and degrade her self, if the t...

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

Date: 1666

"The composition of all poems is or ought to be of wit, and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction), is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it ...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

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."

— Wanley, Nathaniel (1634-1680)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

The Understanding's "searches after Truth, are a sort of Hawking and Hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the Pleasure"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"How far such an one [one in whom "decrepid old Age" has blotted out Memory] (notwithstanding all that is boasted of innate Principles) is in his Knowledge, and intellectual Faculties, above the Condition of a Cockle, or an Oyster, I leave to be considered."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"The ignorance and darkness that is in us, no more hinders nor confines the knowledge that is in others, than the blindness of a mole is an argument against the quicksightedness of an eagle"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1694

The body, like a grasshopper that has grown old, may cast off his skin and "a lively new shrill insect will come forth of it"

— Aristotle [pseud.]

Date: 1694

The body may be resurrected, like "a dying and sluggish Catterpiller" that becomes a lively painted Butterfly.

— Aristotle [pseud.]

Date: 1694

The body may be resurrected, like an ant that becomes a "winged fly."

— Aristotle [pseud.]