Date: 1704

"Others rather believe there is a perpetual game at leap-frog between both, and sometimes the flesh is uppermost, and sometimes the spirit; adding that the former, while it is in the state of a rider, wears huge Rippon spurs, and when it comes to the turn of be...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"And whereas the mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, does never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low, of good and evil, his first flight of fancy commonly transports him to ideas of what is most perfect, finished, and exalted, till, having...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Whether a tincture of malice in our natures makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its reverse, or whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity under shade and darkness, or whe...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"It would be a mighty advantage accruing to the public from this inquiry that all these would very much excel and arrive at great perfection in their several kinds, which I think is manifest from what I have already shown, and shall enforce by this one plain instance, that even I myself, the auth...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1704

"Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their be...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1705

"But as it was not sufficient for the Legislators of the Greeks only to understand Philosophy, but also to put it in Practice; so it was his Pleasure to profess the Precepts of the Stoicks, and particularly that of taming his Passions, before he wou'd sit at the Helm to prescribe Rules of Governm...

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: 1705

"This Virtue is a Gift of Piety, a Sweetness of Spirit; for Clemency is of an Heroick Essence; and the Defection of that Active and Unbridled Passion, which oppugns it, and seems to check it, is the most Wonderful Effect, that they who exercise this Virtue, are able to produce, and the Victory go...

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: 1706 [first published 1658]

"To Ruminate, to chew the Cud: In a figurative Sense, to ponder seriously, to weigh in Mind, to consider, muse, or think upon."

— Phillips, Edward (1630-1696)

Date: 1706

"Did this state of mind remain always so, every one would, without scruple, give it the name of perfect madness; and whilst it does last, at whatever intervals it returns, such a rotation of thoughts about the same object no more carries us forwards towards the attainment of knowledge, than getti...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1706

"O'er the broad lands, and cross the tide, / On fancy's airy horse I ride, / (Sweet rapture of the mind!) / Till on the banks of Ganges' flood, / In a tall ancient grove I stood / For sacred use design's."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)