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Date: May 10, 1704

"Now it usually happens that these active spirits, getting possession of the brain, resemble those that haunt other waste and empty dwellings, which for want of business either vanish and carry away a piece of the house, or else stay at home and fling it all out of the windows."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: 1705

"For though she might be prevail'd with to sacrifice one to the Service of the other, yet she would never part with the last, without it was to gratifie that Noble Passion of Revenge, which is the darling Vice of her Sex, and was not a Stranger to Zarah's Breast."

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

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Date: 1708

"Thus these three Receptacles were made in the same order which we have describ'd, and these were the first part of that great Mass which was form'd; now they stood in need of one another's assistance; the first wanted the other two as Servants, and they again the assistance and guidance of the f...

— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)

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Date: 1709

"[W]e may Hope those favourable Sentiments will be no Strangers to Your Grace's Breast; which is a Repository for all Things Great and Human, for all Things Just and Noble"

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

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Date: 1719

"I call'd a Council, that is to say, in my Thoughts, whether I should take back the Raft, but this appear'd impracticable."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1719

"It is as impossible as needless, to set down the innumerable Crowd of Thoughts that whirl'd through that great Thorowfair of the Brain, the Memory, in this Night's Time."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1719

One may have "several times loud Calls from [his] Reason and [his] more composed Judgment to go home"

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1719-1720, 1725

"But when he consider'd how much he had struggled, and how far he had been from being able to repel Desire, he began to wonder that it cou'd ever enter into his Thoughts, that there was even a Possibility for Woman, so much stronger in her Fancy, and weaker in her Judgment, to suppress the Influe...

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

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Date: 1721

"Belinda, much confused, looked first on him, then on her Mother, remaining silent, seized with a Passion she had been a Stranger to till that Moment. "

— Aubin, Penelope (1679?-1731?)

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Date: 1722, 1725

"LOVE! as it is one of the first Passions for which the Soul finds room, so it is also the most easily deceiv'd"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

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