Date: 1691

"I confess my Mind (the nobler part of me) now and then takes a walk in the large Campaign of Heaven, and there I contemplate the Universe, the Mysterious Concatenation of Causes, and the stupendious Efforts of the Almighty, in consideration whereof I can chearfully bid adieu to the World."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"The Peasant and the Crowned Head, / The same dark Path must tread, / And in the same cold Earth both undistinguisht lie; / (Whilest the sad Soul her Voyage takes / Through gloomy Fens, and Stygian Lakes, / Unable to procure a longer stay, / Into Eternal Exile sails away.)"

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"Sometimes he describ'd the Humors of the Greenwich Usurers, who, as he exprest it, had Hearts of Marble and Entrals of Brass."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"Let none hereafter dare to blame / The Gods, for making Cupid blind / Lest his offence he plagu'd with shame / And all Mens hate, besiege his mind."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"I made answer thus; Because she was made of Adam's Flesh when he was asleep; secondly, she was made of his Rib, the Rib lies near to the Heart, the Heart is Master of Thoughts, and Thoughts beget Words."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"This made my Heart dance the Canaries in my Breast without the help of a Violin."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"So that here by a dear-bought Experience, I found, that the wandering Fancy of Man (nay, that even Life it self) is a it were but a meer Ramble or Fegary after the drag of something that doth itchifie our Senses, which when we have hunted home, we find nothing but a meer delusion."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

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

"For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy blow he had sustain'd from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckon'd upon in his mind, and register'd down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case Bobby should fail him."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out of this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose up in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an uneasy journey of it down."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)