Date: 1702

"Vice is a Thief, a Traytor in the Mind, / Assassinates the Vitals of Mankind."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1710, 1797

"Reason, it is true, is dictator in the society of mankind; from her there ought to lie no appeal: but here we want a POPE in our philosophy, to be the infallible judge of what is, or is not reason."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: Monday, March 3, 1712

"A Vice of a more lively Nature were a more desirable Tyrant than this Rust of the Mind, which gives a Tincture of its Nature to every Action of ones Life."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: 1741

"Happy Souls, who keep such a sacred Dominion over their inferior and animal Powers, and all the Influences of Pride and secular interest, that the sensitive Tumults or these vicious Influences never rise to disturb the superior and better Operations of the reasoning Mind!"

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)