Date: 1620
"Lastly, knowing how much the sight of man's mind is distracted by experience and history, and how hard it is at the first (especially for minds either tender or preoccupied) to become familiar with nature, I not unfrequently subjoin observations of my own, being as the first offers, inclinations...
preview | full record— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)
Date: 1686, 1689, 1697
"The grand Instruments by which the Understanding works, are Memory and Invention: Now, since these Faculties have their foundation in the sensitive Capacity, as this Prop is withdrawn, the Understanding must of Consequence be more clouded and obscure."
preview | full record— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"At least they interpose themselves so much between our understandings and the truth which it would contemplate and apprehend, that like the medium through which visible objects pass, their obscurity and disorder do not seldom cast a mist before our eyes, and impose upon our understandings."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1697
"What inward Whips my tortur'd Bowels tear? / Fierce Vipers twist their Spires about my Heart, / And Bite, and Sting, and Wound with deadly smart. / With more than Atlas weight my Soul's opprest, / And raging Tempests beat along my breast: / Corroding Flames eat thro' my burning veins, / And all ...
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)