Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"But knowledge is as food, and needs no less / Her temperance over appetite, to know / In measure what the mind may well contain; / Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns / Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Mammon led them on-- / Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell / From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts / Were always downward bent."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Mine eyes he closed, but open left the cell / Of fancy, my internal sight"

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1671

"But he though blind of sight, / Despis'd and thought extinguish't quite, / With inward eyes illuminated / His fierie vertue rouz'd / From under ashes into sudden flame"

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1745

"That lies veiled from the eyes of our mind; and the great God hath not thought fit to throw so much light upon it, as to satisfy the anxious and inquisitive desires the soul hath to know it."

— Mason, John (1706-1763)

Date: 1745

"For it is no real dishonour or fault in a man to have but a small ability of mind, provided be hath not the vanity to set up for a genius (which would be as ridiculous, as for a man of small strength and stature of body to set up for a champion), because this is what he cannot help."

— Mason, John (1706-1763)

Date: 1745

"As in the humours of the body, so in the vices of the mind, there is one predominant which has an ascendant over us, and leads and governs us."

— Mason, John (1706-1763)

Date: 1745

"The wounds of the conscience, like those of the body, cannot be well cured till they are searched to the bottom; and they cannot be searched without pain."

— Mason, John (1706-1763)