Date: 1682

"What subtle dart / Had you at first to penetrate my Heart, / Obdure as Steel."

— Coppinger, Matthew (fl. 1682)

Date: 1684

"For certainly there must be some change in our mind when we have some thoughts and then others, and, in fact, ideas of things we are not actually thinking about are in our minds as the shape of Hercules is in rough marble."

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Date: 1684

"Sad Frailty howere both Body, Mind display, / That brighter Coin bad Mixture does Allay."

— Harington, John (1627-1700)

Date: 1684

"This Youth to dinner came, Intruding fashion, / With certain Friend; Danc'd with that Golden Lass; / Found Courting pause sometimes, no Heart of brass, / Softned, orecame: yet once before beheld; / Woo'd then by Looks, now th' Hand and Tongue reveal'd / ...

— Harington, John (1627-1700)

Date: 1684

"Proud sturdy Soul, most Iron-temper'd Brest, / As Subtil too; bad Stratagems possest"

— Harington, John (1627-1700)

Date: 1684

"Nor were these Fruits in a rough Soil bestown / As Gemms are thick'st in rugged Quarries sown."

— Oldham, John (1653-1683)

Date: 1685

Conscience "wounds indeed, / And makes the Heart of hardest Mettal bleed."

— Clark, William (fl. 1663-1685)

Date: 1685

"One would have thought such melting Words / Should break an Heart of Steel."

— Mason, John (1646?-1694)

Date: 1685

"Look, as iron put into the fire becomes all fiery, so the soul dwelling in the God of dove, becomes all love, all delight, all joy."

— Flavell, John (bap. 1630, d. 1691)

Date: 1685

A "heaven-born mind" may have "no dross to purge from [its] rich ore"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)