Date: 1703
"Now as thou art a Man, Horatio, tell me, / What means this wild Confusion in thy Looks? / As if thou wert at variance with thy self, / Madness and Reason combating within thee, / And thou wert doubtful which shou'd get the better."
preview | full record— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)
Date: May 10, 1704
"But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others,...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1704
"All endeavours must be therefore used, either to divert, bind up, stupify, fluster, and amuse the senses, or else, to justle them out of their stations; and while they are either absent, or otherwise employed, or engaged in a civil war against each other, the spirit enters and performs ...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1704
"But Love, resistless Love my Soul invades; / Discretion this, Affection that perswades."
preview | full record— Tate, Nahum (c. 1652-1715)
Date: 1705
"All the World knows it is an Heroick Action not to be transported by our Passions; and tho' they may chance to assault our Wills, yet that Judgment that governs 'em will make us relish our Reasons"
preview | full record— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)
Date: 1705
"This Virtue is a Gift of Piety, a Sweetness of Spirit; for Clemency is of an Heroick Essence; and the Defection of that Active and Unbridled Passion, which oppugns it, and seems to check it, is the most Wonderful Effect, that they who exercise this Virtue, are able to produce, and the Victory go...
preview | full record— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)
Date: 1705
"Guilt is never without a Character, we may Read it in the Criminals Faces; it will appear in their very Eyes, and express that the Contempt of Virtue hath caused an Insurrection of the Passions."
preview | full record— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)
Date: 1705
"At last, being assaulted by Turns, on the one Side by Reason, and the other by Interest and Passion, she got up early in the Morning, without having been able to take any other Resolution, than to yield her self up, if possible, to be govern'd by Volpone, and be for the future meerly Passive in ...
preview | full record— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)
Date: 1705
"But if the Corporeal Soul withstanding, as it often happens, the Rational still insists with Admonitions and Threats, presently the other growing hot, moves the Blood and Spirits after a disorderly manner, opposes Corporeal Goods and Pleasures, to the Spiritual presented by the Understanding, an...
preview | full record— Beaumont, John (c.1640-1731)
Date: 1706, 1715 [1706-1721]
"My spirit is tossed with a thousand tormenting things, and my thoughts destroy one another the same moment they are conceived, to make way for more; and so long as my body suffers by the impressions of my mind, how shall I be able to hold paper, or a reed to write."
preview | full record— Anonymous