Date: 1699

"Reason 'tis true, should over sense preside, / Correct our Notions and our Judgments guide; / But false Opinions, rooted in the mind / Hood-wink the Soul, and keep the Reason blind."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1699

"Reason's a Taper, which but faintly burns: / A Languid Flame that glows and dies by turns: / We see't a while, and but a little way / We travel by its Light, as Men by Day; / But quickly dying, it forsakes us soon; / Like Morning Stars that never stay till Noon."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1699

"Reason has little now to do but prove / That some most perfect Being rules above, / And this by little Inference we find: / 'Tis plain; 'tis bright, 'tis written on the Mind."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1702

"Thus a man's Face in the Glass is properly the 'Idea' of that Face; or when we seen any single Object, the little Picture or Image form'd at the bottom of the Eye may be properly call'd the 'Idea' of the thing seen; and by a Latitude in Expression the Picture of a Man or of any thing else, may b...

— Lee, Henry, (c.1644-1713)

Date: 1736

"Infuse a little Wit into the Scull, / Which never fails to make a mighty Fool; / Two Drams of Faith; a Tun of Doubting next; / Let all be with the Dregs of Reason mixt: / When, in his Mind, these jarring Seeds are sown, / He'll censure all Things, but approve of none."

— Duck, Stephen (1705-1756)

Date: 1742, 1777

"As a stream necessarily follows the several inclinations of the ground, on which it runs; so are the ignorant and thoughtless part of mankind actuated by their natural propensities"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742, 1777

"The fabric and constitution of our mind no more depends on our choice, than that of our body."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742, 1777

"Such are effectually excluded from all pretensions to philosophy, and the medicine of the mind, so much boasted."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1770

"It is a favourite maxim with Mr LOCKE, as it was with some ancient philosophers, that the human soul, previous to education, is like a piece of white paper, or tabula rasa, and this simile, harmless as it may appear, betrays our great modern into several important mistakes."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1770

"Let him not intrude upon the company of men of science; but repose with his brethren Aquinas and Suarez, in the corner of some Gothic cloister, dark as his understanding, and cold as his heart."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)