Date: 1660, 1676

"Conscience is the treasury of Divine commandments and rules in practical things."

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)

Date: 1664

"Indeed, one may compare the nerves of the machine I am describing with the pipes in the works of these fountains, its muscles and tendons with the various devices and springs which serve to set them in motion, its animal spirits with the water which drives them, the heart with the source of the ...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1665

"The like frailties are to be found in the Memory; we often let many things slip away from us, which deserve to be retain'd; and of those which we treasure up, a great part is either frivolous or false; and if good, and substantial, either in tract of time obliterated, or at best so overwhelmed a...

— Hooke, Robert (1635-1703)

Date: 1665

The understanding "must examine, range, and dispose of the bank which is laid up in the Memory; but it must be sure to make distinction between the sober and well collected heap, and the extravagant Idea's, and mistaken Images, which there it may sometimes light upon."

— Hooke, Robert (1635-1703)

Date: 1666

"O truly royal! who behold the law, / And rule of beings in your Maker's mind; / And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw, / To fit the levelled use of humankind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"But knowledge is as food, and needs no less / Her temperance over appetite, to know / In measure what the mind may well contain; / Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns / Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"First crept / The parsimonious emmet, provident / Of future; in small room large heart enclosed"

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1675

"Since our minds are the Magazines of true wealth, and why should we expect that from Strangers, which we may bestow upon our Selves?"

— Le Grand, Antoine (1629-1699)

Date: 1678

"Into his studious Closet to stuff his Lunatick head, since he can get nothing for his belly."

— Porter, Thomas (1636-1680)

Date: 1680

"And nothing to the Soul can come, / Till th' ushering Senses make it room."

— Shadwell, Thomas (1642-1692)