Date: 1710, 1714

"For company is an extreme provocative to fancy and, like a hotbed in gardening, is apt to make our imaginations sprout too fast."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1710, 1714

"So that, if there be no certain inspector or auditor established within us to take account of these opinions and fancies in due form and minutely to animadvert upon their several growths and habits, we are as little like to continue a day in the same will as a tree, during the summer, in the sam...

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1773, 1894-1895

"For what the Bark is to the growing Tree, / To human Mind, that, Patience seems to be; / They hold the Principles of Growth together, / And blunt the Force of Accident, and Weather."

— Byrom, John (1692-1763)

Date: 1773, 1894-1895

"Patience defends us from all outward Hap; / Of inward Life Thanksgiving is the Sap."

— Byrom, John (1692-1763)

Date: 1817

"'--O let not Sloth depress to earth / 'Those early blossoms in their birth, / 'Which to your ripening mind is given, / 'To bloom through time, then rise to heaven!"

— Combe, William (1742 -1823)

Date: 1817

With "attentive hand" the "Luxuriance" of one's nature may be pruned so that branches will bear fruit

— Combe, William (1742 -1823)

Date: 1817

"The seeds, in earliest Childhood sown / As buds, will in the Boy be known: / In Youth, as blossoms will appear, / And in full Manhood, fruitage bear."

— Combe, William (1742 -1823)