Date: 1611-12, 1623

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; / Pluck from the memory of a rooted sorrow; / Raze out the written troubles of the brain; / And with some sweet oblivious antidote / Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff / Which weighs upon the heart?"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

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: 1678

"Into his studious Closet to stuff his Lunatick head, since he can get nothing for his belly."

— Porter, Thomas (1636-1680)

Date: 1693

"Knock on my Heart; for thou hast skill to find / If it sound solid, or be fill'd with Wind; / And, thro the veil of words, thou view'st the naked Mind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)