Date: 1632

"Looke as it is with a Gold smith that melteth the metall that he is to make a vessell of, if after the melting thereof, there follow a cooling, it had beene as good it had never beene melted, it is as hard, haply harder, as unfit, haply unfitter, then it was before to make vessell of; but after ...

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1651, 1668

"All fancies are motions within us, relics of those made in the sense: and those motions that immediately succeeded one another in the sense, continue also together after sense: insomuch as the former coming again to take place, and be predominant, the latter followeth, by coherence of the matter...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1666

"O truly royal! who behold the law, / And rule of beings in your Maker's mind; / And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw, / To fit the levelled use of humankind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1670

Weakness of mind may be water-like or wax-like

— Greville, Fulke, first Baron Brooke of Beauchamps Court (1554-1628)

Date: 1678

"The Interpreter answered; This Parlor is the heart of a Man that was never sanctified by the sweet Grace of the Gospel: The dust, is his Original Sin, and inward Corruptions that have defiled the whole Man; He that began to sweep at first, is the Law; but She that brought water, and did sprinkle...

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: November, 1682

"In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep; / But found their line too short, the well too deep; / And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"Learning ought to be infus'd into the Scholar like spirits into a Bottle, by little and little, for whosoever attempts to pour in all at once, may in all likelihood spill a great part, and in a great measure fill the Vessel with Wind and Air."

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

Surveying the "Powers of our own Minds" is like fathoming "the depths of the Ocean": "'Tis of great use to the Sailor to know the length of his Line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the Ocean. 'Tis well he knows, that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such Places as are ...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1691

"The Brain, which is the principle of all Sense and Motion, the Fountain of the Animal Spirits, the Chief Seat and Palace Royal of the Soul; upon whose security depends whatever Privilege belongs to us as Sensitive or Rational Creatures."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627–1705)

Date: 1691

"I cannot conceive the true Cause hereof [that Men of Learning are uncouth in their discourse], unless it be, that as Plants are Choakt by over-much Moisture, and Lamps are Stifl'd with too much Oil; so are the Actions of the Mind overwhelm'd by over-abundance of Matter and Study."

— Blount, Thomas Pope, Sir (1649-1697)