Date: 1716

"You think, perhaps, his dull Capacity, / In flight of Reason, cannot soar so high, / As to confirm him in his Sophistry."

— Anonymous

Date: 1716

"Led on by Reason, that blind Guide o'th'Mind. / Thro Labyrinths of Thought, and envious Ways, / It will conduct you to the fatal Place, / And leave you there."

— Anonymous

Date: 1716

"O then, from such Idolatry refrain, To worship the Chimeras of your Brain."

— Anonymous

Date: 1716

"As by Rebellion Subjects oft become / Lords of their Monarch, and pronounce his Doom: / So Reason, to your wicked Nature join'd, / Rebels 'gainst Faith, whose Slave it was design'd."

— Anonymous

Date: August 18, 1716; 1735

"If Momus’s project had taken, of having windows in our breasts, I should be for carrying it further, and making those windows casements: that while a man showed his heart to all the world, he might do something more for his friends, e’en take it out, and trust to their handling."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1720

"The Goths were not so barbarous a Race / As the grim Rusticks of this motly Place; / Of Reason void, and Thought, whom Int'rest rules, / Yet will be Knaves tho' Nature meant them Fools."

— Diaper, William (1686-1717)

Date: 1721, 1722

"With us there is an uniformity of character, as it is all forced: we do not see people as they are, but as they are obliged to appear: in this state of slavery, both of body and mind, it is their fears only that speak, which have but one language, and that not of nature, which expresses herself ...

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"Dissimulation, an art among us universally practised, and so necessary, is unknown here: they speak every thing, see every thing, and hear every thing: the heart, like the face, is visible."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"This prince is, besides, a great magician; he exercises his empire even over the minds of his subjects, and makes them think as he pleases."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"There are few women abandoned enough to go this length; they all bear in their hearts a certain impression of virtue, naturally engraved on them, which though their education may weaken, it cannot destroy."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)