Date: 1665

"Which last Expression suits very well with the present case, since, when a pious Soul is once got upon the wing of Contemplation, she must descend and stoop to exchange her converse with Heavenly objects, for one with Earthly vanities, and much more must she debase and degrade her self, if the t...

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

Date: 1704

"For, it is the opinion of choice virtuosi, that the brain is only a crowd of little animals, but with teeth and claws extremely sharp, and therefore cling together in the contexture we behold, like the picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like bees in perpendicular swarm upon a tr...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1704

"Others rather believe there is a perpetual game at leap-frog between both, and sometimes the flesh is uppermost, and sometimes the spirit; adding that the former, while it is in the state of a rider, wears huge Rippon spurs, and when it comes to the turn of be...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1709

"Complex Ideas are the Creatures of the Mind"

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: Friday, June 20, 1712

"Upon her Tongue did such smooth Mischief dwell, / And from her Lips such welcome Flatt'ry fell, / Th' unguarded Youth, in Silken Fetters ty'd, / Resign'd his Reason, and with Ease complied. / Thus does the Ox to his own Slaughter go, / And thus is senseless of th' impending Blow. / Thus flies th...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1732

"But the free-thinker, with a vigorous flight of thought, breaks through those airy springes, and asserts his original independency."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"He that wants the proper materials of thought, may think and meditate for ever to no purpose: those cobwebs spun by scholars out of their own brains being alike unserviceable, either for use or ornament."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1753

"The Moral of this Fable is, that Humanity is the Characteristick of Man; and that a cruel Soul in a human Body, is only a Wolf in Disguise."

— Boyse, Samuel (1708-1749)

Date: 1757

"By looking into physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit whether we take or whether we lose our game, the chace is certainly of service"

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1757

"[T]he judgment is for the greater part employed in throwing stumbling blocks in the way of the imagination, in dissipating the scenes of enchantment, and in tying us down to the disagreeable yoke of our reason"

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)