Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"What Struglings and Conflicts are there betwixt the Animal Inclinations, and the more masculine Dictates of Reason?"

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

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 ...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1710

"But LOVE slides in so secretly, that it is impossible to observe its Entry or its Progress; like a mask’d Enemy, it advanceth and seizeth all parts of the Soul, before it is discovered: When there is no means to be found to get him out, then he triumphs, and Wisdom and Reason must become his Sla...

— Tipper, John (1663–1713)

Date: 1748

"There is nothing more certain, that that there are two Kinds of Conviction, one flowing from a sudden and violent breaking-in of Truth, when the Understanding is as it were taken by Storm, and a Man's whole System of Thinking is changed in an Instant: the other a gradual, gentle, and slow steali...

— Anonymous; [Lyttleton]