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Date: 1700, 1717

"Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies; / And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies, / By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossess, / And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; / Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find, / And actuates those according to their kind; / From Tenement ...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

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Date: 1700, 1712

"And so our Saviour tells us, that 'whosoever committeth sin is the Servant of sin'; and this is the vilest and hardest Slavery in the World, because it is the Servitude of the Soul, the best and noblest part of our selves; 'tis the subjection of our Reason, which ought to rule and bear Sway over...

— Tillotson, John (1630-1694)

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Date: 1700

"My Thoughts should like their Silver Fishes shine, / With quick, bright glitterings thro' each moving line."

— Hopkins, John (b. 1675)

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Date: May 1701

"I am gone--oh my Transported Soul,... That like a Bird fain to its nest wou'd fly, / But finds all Plunder'd where it us'd to lye."

— D'Urfey, Thomas (1653?-1723)

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Date: 1702

"But then reflecting that I might possibly o'er-hear some part of their Discourse, and by that judge of Leonora's Thoughts, I rein'd my Passion in; and by the help of an advancing Buttress, which kept me from their sight, I learnt the black Conspiracy."

— Vanbrugh, Sir John (1664-1726)

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Date: 1700, 1702

"Thought is Damnation, 'tis the Plague of Devils. / To think on what they are! and see this Weapon / Shall shield me from it, plunge me in forgetfulness. / Er'e the dire Scorpion Thought can rouse to sting me."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

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Date: 1703, 1718

One's breast may become "a Den of salvage Passions, left / Without a Keeper, loose and unconfin'd"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: May 10, 1704

"But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others,...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: 1704

"Charity, decent, modest, easy, kind, / Softens the high, and rears the abject Mind; / Knows with just Reins, and gentle Hand to guide, / Betwixt vile Shame, and arbitrary Pride."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

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Date: 1704

"For, it is the opinion of choice virtuosi, that the brain is only a crowd of little animals, but with teeth and claws extremely sharp, and therefore cling together in the contexture we behold, like the picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like bees in perpendicular swarm upon a tr...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.