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)

Date: 1707, 1709

Mr Clark "Conquer'd those Vipers in his Conscience bred, / And with himself, shot all the stinging Fantoms dead"

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1708

"As if his hollow Skull had been / A Hive fill'd full of Bees within" who "To Wax and Honey turn'd his Brains; / For the long Speech he did transmit, / Was sometimes hard, and sometimes sweet"

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: November 25, 1707; 1708

"Now, now it shoots, / It tow'rs upon the Wing to Crowns and Empire; / While Love and Aribert, those meaner Names, / Are left far, far behind, and lost for ever. / So if by chance the Eagle's noble Off-spring, / Ta'en in the Nest, becomes some Peasant's Prize, / Compell'd a while he bears his Cag...

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: November 25, 1707; 1708

"In vain they lavish all their cruel Arts, / And bind this feeble Body here in vain; / The free, impassive Soul mounts on the Wing, / Beyond the reach of Racks, and tort'ring Flames, / And scorns their Tyranny."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)