page 2 of 6     per page:
sorted by:

Date: November 4, 1672, 1673

"Thou Live, and yet speak against Drinking, the very thing that distinguishes the Life of Man from that of a Beast! Why, 'tis the onely Spur of Wit and Reason; I have heard more new thoughts in Drinking three hours, then the best Modern Play can furnish you with; Therefore if thou would'st Live, ...

— Payne, Henry [alias Henry Nevill] (d. 1705?)

preview | full record

Date: March 12, 1673

"I'le keep my Soul free as the Bird that flyes i'th Aire, / I'le ne'r love one, till I of all besides Despair."

— Ravenscroft, Edward (c.1650- c.1700)

preview | full record

Date: 1674, 1686

"For Fancy's like a rough, but ready Horse, / Whose mouth is govern'd more by skill than force; / Wherein (my Friend) you do a Maistry own, / If not particular to you alone; /Yet such at least as to all eyes declares /Your Pegasus the best performs his Ayres."

— Cotton, Charles (1630-1687)

preview | full record

Date: 1676

"Sorrow and remorse gnaw [the] soul"

— Etherege, Sir George (1636-1691/2)

preview | full record

Date: 1677

"Or else unto those Birds (aspiring) rare, / The Soul contemplative I may compare, / Of whom King David worthily attests, / That by the Holy Altar build their Nests: / So Meditation's said in holy Story, / To build her Nest about the Throne of Glory."

— Speed, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. 1679?)

preview | full record

Date: 1678

"A Weak mind complains before it is overtaken with evil, and as Birds are affrighted with the noise of the Sling, so the infirm soul anticipates its troubles by its own fearful apprehensions, and falls under them before they are yet arrived."

— Wanley, Nathaniel (1634-1680)

preview | full record

Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"To chew the cud upon a thing ... To consider of a thing, to revolve it in one's mind: to ruminate, which is the name of this action, is used in the same sense both in Latin and English."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)

preview | full record

Date: 1678

"I left off to watch, and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the Word, and the goodness of God."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

preview | full record

Date: 1678

"This conceit would loosen the reines of our lust, and tollerate us to live as we list."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

preview | full record

Date: 1678

"But, like a mole in earth, busy and blind, / [the soul] Works all her folly up, and casts it outward / To the world's open view"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

preview | full record

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.