Date: 1701

"This may give him hopes, that tho' his Trunk return to its native Dust he may not all Perish, but the Inhabitant of it may remove to another Mansion; especially since he knows only Mechanically that they have, not Demonstratively how they have, even a present Union."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Monday, June, 1711

"The indolent Man descends from the Dignity of his Nature, and makes that Being which was Rational merely Vegetative: His Life consists only in the meer Encrease and Decay of a Body, which, with relation to the rest of the World, might as well have been uninformed, as the Habitation of a reasonab...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: September 10, 1726

"Yet we must not suppose that they are continually in their Retirement; they would become useless if they were so. But on the contrary, great Numbers of them are always going to and fro; and if one of them chances to go by the Cell or Lodge of another which has the least real or imaginary conform...

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

Date: 1727

"The common Fluency of Speech in many Men, and most Women, is owing to a Scarcity of Matter, and a Scarcity of Words; for whoever is a Master of Language, and hath a Mind full of Ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the Choice of both; whereas common Speakers have only one Set of Ide...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1774

"Reason, therefore, at once gives judgment upon the cause; and the vagrant intruder, imagination, is imprisoned, or banished from the mind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)