Date: 1710, 1714

"For Nature will not be mock'd. The Prepossession against her can never be very lasting. Her Decrees and Instincts are powerful. She has a strong Party abroad; and as strong a one within our-selves."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1727

"With inflected View, / Thence on th' Ideal Kingdom, swift, she turns / Her Eye; and instant, at her virtual Glance, / Th' obedient Phantoms vanish, and appear, / Compound, divide, and into Order shift, / Each to his rank, from plain Perception up / To Notion quite abstract; where first begins / ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730, 1744, 1746

"Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, such / As never mingled with the vulgar dream, / Crowd fast into the mind's creative eye."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"At first his Passions burst / Quick as the Lightning's Flash: but in his Breast / Honour and Justice dwell--Trust me, to Reason / He will return."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1746

"He framed a melting lay, to try her heart; / And, if an infant passion struggled there, / To call that passion forth."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1746

"With inward view, / Thence on the ideal kingdom swift she turns / Her eye; and instant, at her powerful glance, / The obedient phantoms vanish or appear; / Compound, divide, and into order shift, / Each to his rank, from plain perception up / To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1754

"Our simple ideas, and even our complex ideas, and notions return sometimes of themselves, we know not why, nor how, mechanically, as it were, uncalled by the mind, and often to the disturbance of it in the pursuit of other ideas, to which these intruders are foreign."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1754

"Intellect, the artificer, works lamely without his proper instrument, sense; which is the case when he works on moral ideas."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: November 28, 1783

"Our Maker has given us this faithful internal monitor [the conscience], and if you always obey it, you will always be prepared for the end of the world, or for a more certain event, which is death."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)