Date: 1694
"If Man would understand the Excellency of the Soul, as far as it is capable of comprehending it self, let him, after serious Recollection, descend into himself, and search diligently his own Mind, and there he shall find so many admirable Gifts, and excellent Ornaments."
preview | full record— Aristotle [pseud.]
Date: 1698
"He can't be assured the same Colours of Reason and Desire will last. Any little Accident from without may metamorphose his Fancy, and push him upon a new set of Thoughts."
preview | full record— Collier, Jeremy (1650-1726)
Date: 1701
"Stand by ye Fools--That noble Theam's my share,/ Farce is a Strain too low to court the Fair; / When to that pitch your Thoughts attempt to fly, / Like unskill'd Icarus you soar too high."
preview | full record— Baker, Thomas (b. 1680-1)
Date: May 10, 1704
"The whining passions and little starved conceits are gently wafted up by their own extreme levity to the middle region, and there fix and are frozen by the frigid understandings of the inhabitants."
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1708, 1714
"The Human Mind and Body are both of 'em naturally subject to Commotions: and as there are strange Ferments in the Blood, which in many Bodys occasion an extraordinary discharge; so in Reason too, there are heterogeneous Particles which must be thrown off by Fermentation."
preview | full record— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Date: 1709, 1810
"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1710, 1734
"For example, the will is termed the motion of the soul: this infuses a belief, that the mind of man is as a ball in motion, impelled and determined by the objects of sense, as necessarily as that is by the stroke of a racket."
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]
"The Senses stand around; the Spirits roam / To seize and bring the fleeting Objects home: / Thro' every Nerve and every Pore they pass."
preview | full record— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)
Date: Thursday, March 22, 1711
"At such a time the Mind of the Prosperous Man goes, as it were, abroad, among things without him, and is more exposed to the Malignity."
preview | full record— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
Date: Saturday, November 17, 1711
"I have often thought if the Minds of Men were laid open, we should see but little Difference between that of the Wise Man and that of the Fool. There are infinite Reveries, numberless Extravagancies, and a perpetual Train of Vanities which pass through both."
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)