Date: May 10, 1704

"But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others,...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"And whereas the mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, does never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low, of good and evil, his first flight of fancy commonly transports him to ideas of what is most perfect, finished, and exalted, till, having...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Whether a tincture of malice in our natures makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its reverse, or whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity under shade and darkness, or whe...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"It would be a mighty advantage accruing to the public from this inquiry that all these would very much excel and arrive at great perfection in their several kinds, which I think is manifest from what I have already shown, and shall enforce by this one plain instance, that even I myself, the auth...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1710

"The Two Principal Qualifications of a Phanatick Preacher are, his Inward Light, and his Head full of Maggots."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1756, 1766

"Whether the learned Dr. Edmund Law, and the great Dr. Sherlock bishop of London, be right, in asserting, the human soul sleeps like a bat or a swallow, in some cavern for a period, till the last trumpet awakens the hero of Voltaire and Henault, I mean Lewis XIV."

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1760-7

"That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--tra...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,--or, in other words, when his Hobby-Horse grows head-strong,--farewell cool reason and fair discretion!"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"But here the mind has all the evidence and facts within herself;--is conscious of the web she has wove;--knows its texture and fineness, and the exact share which every passion has had in working upon the several designs which virtue or vice has plann'd before her."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)