Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"Now these Imperfections are not intrinsick, but accidental to the Soul, nor do they argue its corruptibility or mortality, any more than the spots and clouds we see in some Diamonds, do prove them to be less durable then others which are more limpid and transparent."

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"THE Pearl has this Prerogative above all other Jewels, that whereas they require form and lustre from Art, the Pearl only is perfected by Nature. Its colour, roundness, smoothness and bigness (in which consists its whole beauty) are all fram'd in its Mothers womb; but Man is a Jewel of another N...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"'Tis so many times in the capacities of Youth: they who can receive any impression like the Virgin-wax, will as easily suffer a defacement unless it be hardned and matur'd by Time: whereas others who are hard to be wrought upon like Steel, retain the Images which are Engraven on them with much m...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: January 1739

"I know that the fear of the civil magistrate is as strong a restraint as any of iron, and that I am in as perfect safety as if he were chain'd or imprison'd."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1901-2, 1902

"It is as if a bar of iron, without touch or sight, with no representative faculty whatever, might nevertheless be strongly endowed with an inner capacity for magnetic feeling; and as if, through the various arousals of its magnetism by magnets coming and going in its neighborhood, it might be co...

— James, William (1842-1910)

Date: 1901-2, 1902

"We must class him, like Bunyan and Tolstoy, amongst those upon whose soul the iron of melancholy left a permanent imprint."

— James, William (1842-1910)