Date: 1687

"Conscience is the Royalty and Prerogative of every Private man. He is absolute in his own Breast, and accountable to no Earthly Power, for that which passes only betwixt God and Him."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1687

"At this enrag'd, the injur'd Deity / Chose out the best of his Artillery, / And in a blooming Virgin's Dove-like Eyes / He planted his Victorious Batteries; / (Phillis her Name, the best of Woman-kind, / Could Love have gain'd the Empire of her Mind) / These shot so furiously against my Heart, /...

— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)

Date: 1689, 1716

"'What Confidence can you in them repose, / 'Who e're they serve you, all their Value lose? / 'Who once enslave their Conscience to their Lust, / 'Have lost their Reins, and can no more be Just."

— Montagu, Charles, 1st Earl of Halifax (1661-1715)

Date: 1692

A "soft Enchantress of the mind" may have to resign the empire of her lover's heart

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

Date: 1693

"Needless was written law, where none opprest; / The law of man was written in his breast."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"Who can describe the Pleasures, which attend A fair kind She, a Bottle, and a Friend? / How they divide the Empire of our Souls, / While each with grateful Tyranny controuls"

— Ames, Richard (bap. 1664?, d. 1692)

Date: 1693

"Reason you plead, if you it seems t'acquit, / But if condemn'd, its Vote you won't admit. / But still, if private Reason you pretend / Must be the Judge, Disputes will never end."

— Wesley, Samuel, The Elder (bap. 1662, d. 1735)

Date: 1693

"But if thy Passions lord it in thy Breast, / Art thou not still a Slave, and still opprest."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: c. 1695-8 [published 1907]

"You o'er my heart were born to reign / And bravely took it by Invasion."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1695

"But 'tis not Worldly Empire he design'd, / His Scepter is his Grace, his Throne the Mind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)