Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"The brain that sows not corn plants thistles."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)

Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"Corn is cleansed with the wind, and the soul with chastning."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)

Date: 1678

"I believe that what both you, and all the rest of you say about that matter, is but the fruit of distracted braines."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1682

"There are sown the Seeds of Divine Things in Mortal Bodies. If the Mind be well Cultivated, the Fruit answers the Original; and, if not, all runs into Weeds."

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)

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: 1686, 1689, 1697

"How doth Reason exert it self by little and little, what Helps and Arts are there us'd to make the Flower open and shew it self to the World?"

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: w. 1687 [published 1907]

"Yet potent Nature frankly has bestow'd / Such various gifts amongst the mingl'd Crowd, */ That I believe, the dullest of the kind, / Wou'd he but Husband and Manure his Mind,* / Might find some Exce'llence there, which well-improv'd / At home might make him Pleas'd, in public Lov'd."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

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: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"In all these cases, Ideas in the Mind, quickly fade, and often vanish quite out of the Understanding, leaving no more footsteps or remaining Characters of themselves, than Shadows do flying over fields of Corn; and the Mind is as void of them, as if they never had been there."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1691

"Thirdly, Let us hence duly learn to prize and value our Souls; is the Body such a rare Piece, what this is the Soul? the Body is but the Husk or Shell, the Soul is the Kernel; the Body is but the Cask, the Soul the precious Liquor contained in it; the Body is but the Cabinet; the Soul the Jewel;...

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627–1705)