Date: 1693

"But this small Out-let to my Passion gave it but little ease, a thousand distracting Thoughts turn'd my Mind to e'ry side, not permitting it to fix on any thing, yet all tended to the Contrivance of the satisfaction of my too impatient desires."

— Anonymous

Date: May 10, 1704

"The whining passions and little starved conceits are gently wafted up by their own extreme levity to the middle region, and there fix and are frozen by the frigid understandings of the inhabitants."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)