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Date: 1700

"Reason, 'tis true, shou'd over Sense Preside, / Correct our Notions, and our Judgment Guide; / But false Opinions, rooted in the Mind, / Hoodwink the Soul, and keep our Reason Blind."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

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Date: 1700, 1705

"Wit is a Flux, a Looseness of the Brain, / And Sense-abstract has too much Pride to reign."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1700, 1705

"Abstracted-Wit 'Tis own'd is a Disease, / But Sense-abstracted has no Power to please."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1700, 1705

"Sense without Wit is Flegmatick and pale, / And is all Head, forsooth, without a Tail: / Wit without Sense is Cholerick and Red, / Has Tail enough indeed, but has no Head."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1700, 1705

"Wit, like the Belly, if it be not fed, / Will starve the Members, and distract the Head."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1700, 1705

"Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive, / Sense is the Vital Heat which Life and Form must give: / Wit is the Teeming Mother brings them forth, / Sense is the Active Father gives them Worth."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1702 [but see also earlier editions 1648, 1651]

"Thy Paradise, thro' whose fair Hills of Joy / Those Springs of everlasting Vigor range, / Which make Souls drunk with Heav'n, which cleanse away / All Earth from Dust, and Flesh to Spirit change."

— Beaumont, Joseph (1616-1699)

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Date: 1703, 1718

"Guilt's infernal Gloom, and horrid Night" may "O'erwhelm [Man's] Intellectual Sight"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1704

"As thro' the Artist's intervening Glass, / Our Eye observes the distant Planets pass; / A little we discover; but allow, / That more remains unseen, than Art can show: / So whilst our Mind it's Knowledge wou'd improve; / (It's feeble Eye intent on Things above) / High as We may, We lift our Rea...

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

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Date: 1705, 1712

"[W]ise Men on sound Reason ground Belief: / How that they find what for the Soul is good, / As by their Smell and Taste they judge their Food; / For who but each Man's Reason ought to try / 'Tis Faith, who must be sav'd or damn'd thereby."

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

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