Date: 1662

"Flowers, rivers, woods, the pleasant air and wind, / With Sacred thoughts, do feed my serious mind."

— Watkyns, Rowland (c. 1614-1664)

Date: 1667

"Good Conscience on God it self can roul; / 'Tis Aquavitæ to the swouning soul."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

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: 1678

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

— Porter, Thomas (1636-1680)

Date: 1679, 1707

"Prosperity's Repasts puff up the Mind / With unsubstantial and unwholesom Wind."

— Anonymous

Date: 1691

"I say I've but one little tiney favour to beg, and then--and that is--that he'd maturely Weigh, Swallow, Chew the Cud, and soundly digest this following first Book, before he throw it out agen, for should he make too much hast, and too greedily read it over, as 'tis to be fear'd the pleasantness...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1701

"That Opinion, Tremilia, denotes a diseas'd Mind, which is as naturally averse to every thing that's pleasant, and agreeable, as a Diseas'd Body is to wholsom Food."

— Baker, Thomas (b. 1680-1)

Date: 1705, 1712

"[W]ise Men on sound Reason ground Belief: / How that they find what for the Soul is good, / As by their Smell and Taste they judge their Food; / For who but each Man's Reason ought to try / 'Tis Faith, who must be sav'd or damn'd thereby."

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1706 [first published 1658]

"Appetite, the Affection of the Mind, by which we are stirr'd up to any thing, inordinate Desire, Lust: Also the desire of Nourishment, or a Stomach to one's Victuals."

— Phillips, Edward (1630-1696)

Date: 1709

"They fed the Body, but did feast the Mind."

— Gould, Robert (b. 1660?, d. in or before 1709)