Date: 1683

"To Reason's yoke she quickly will incline, / Which, far from hurting, renders her divine; / But if neglected, will as easily stray, / And master Reason, which she should obey."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700) [Poem ascribed to]

Date: 1651

"Voluntary, the third, or intellective, which commands the other two in men, and is a curb unto them, or at least should be, but for the most part is captivated and overruled by them; and men are led like beasts by sense, giving reins to their concupiscence and several lusts."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1683

Reason may (not) "rule the Rost"

— Dixon, Robert (1614/15-1688).

Date: 1733-4

"And hence one Master Passion in the breast, / Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1712, 1736

There are sovereign Lords "Whom Lust controuls, and wild Desires direct; / The Reigns of Empire but such Hands disgrace, / Where Passion, a blind Driver, guides the Race."

— Granville, George, Baron Lansdowne (1666-1735)

Date: 1754

"The character of a candid enquirer is very commendable; for in his search whatever he finds he immediately acknowledges; he gives his judgment liberty to exert itself, and restrains his imagination from soaring beyond its strength, and from declaring that he hath found what is not."

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1759

The passions may "rebel against their proper Guide, and forcibly snatch the Reins out of the Hands of that Governor appointed to restrain and keep them within their own prescribed Bounds"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1762-3

"Whatever unto them is brought / Is carried on the wings of thought / Before his throne, where, in full state, / He on their merits holds debate, / Examines, cross-examines, weighs / Their right to censure or to praise."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"[T]he five senses in alliance [may] / To Reason hurl a proud defiance, / And, though oft conquer'd, yet unbroke, / Endeavour to throw off that yoke / Which they a greater slavery hold / Than Jewish bondage was of old"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1767

"Man in this world, Sir, may be compared to a hackney-coach upon a stand; continually subject to be drawn by his unruly appetites, on one foolish jaunt or another; but you will say, if his appetites are horses, which as it were drag him along, reason is the coachman to rule those horses--But, Sir...

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)