Date: 1588

"My mind to me a kingdom is; / Such perfect joy therein I find / That it excels all other bliss / Which God or nature hath assign'd."

— Dyer, Sir Edward (1543-1607)

Date: 1718

"A thousand little Nerves She sends / Quite to our Toes, and Fingers Ends; / And These in Gratitude again / Return their Spirits to the Brain; / In which their Figure being printed / (As just before, I think, I hinted) / Alma inform'd can try the Case, / As She had seen upon the Place. // Thus, w...

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

The mind is like "The Pope [who] prays and sleeps at Rome, / And very seldom stirs from Home: / Yet sending forth his Holy Spies, / And having heard what They advise, / He rules the Church's blest Dominions; / And sets Men's Faith by His Opinions."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Alma, They strenuously maintain, / Sits Cock-horse on Her Throne, the Brain; / And from that Seat of Thought dispenses / Her Sov'reign Pleasure to the Senses."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

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)

Date: 1751, 1791

"Some few there are of sordid mould, / Who barter youth and bloom for gold; / Careless with what, or whom they mate, / Their ruling passion's all for state."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"To Fancy's court we strait apply, / And wait the sentence of her eye."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"The passions are a num'rous crowd, / Imperious, positive, and loud: / Curb these licentious sons of strife; / Hence chiefly rise the storms of life: / If they grow mutinous, and rave, / They are thy masters, thou their slave."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"That Breast, where Honour builds his Throne, / That Breast, which Virtue calls her own."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"The brain's an useless organ grown, / And Reason tumbled from his throne."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)