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Date: 1738, 1742

"See what obnoxious Vices still remain, / Which there's no Law, no Bridle, to restrain."

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)

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Date: 1745

"Keep strongly in the hot rebellious Mind, / Be it with Bits restrain'd, and Curbs confin'd. / The docile Horse in prime of Years is broke / To bear the Rein, or stretch beneath the Yoke."

— Whaley, John (bap. 1710, d. 1745)

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Date: 1749

People may "Bridle their passions and direct their will"

— Stepney, George (1663-1707)

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Date: 1754

"If I cannot, draw out Cacus from his Den; I may pluck the Villain from my own Breast. I cannot cleanse the Stables of Augeas; but I may cleanse my own Heart from Filth and Impurity: I may demolish the Hydra of Vices within me; and should be careful too, that while I lop off ...

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

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Date: October 10, 1769

"My imagination without wing or broom stick off mounts aloft, rises into ye Regions of pure space, and without lett or impediment bears me to your fireside, where you can set me in your easy chair, and we talk and reason, as angel Host and guest Aetherial should do, of high and important matters."

— Montagu [née Robinson], Elizabeth (1718-1800)

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Date: 1773

"But reasoning with a man under the influence of any passion is like endeavouring to stop a wild horse, who becomes more violent from being pursued."

— Graves, Richard (1715-1804)

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Date: 1775, 1776

"'Let Meekness as a dove / 'Brood in man's heart the sacred acts of Love."

— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)

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Date: 1779

"Sorrow may well possess the mind / That feeds where thorns and thistles grow"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

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Date: 1782

Reveries are "flimsy webs that break as soon as wrought" and don't attain "to the dignity of thought"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

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Date: 1782

The mind may slumber sweetly in vice's snares, her "polish'd neck" bent beneath tyranny's "usurp'd command"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

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