Date: 360-355 B.C.
"Imagine, then, for the sake of argument, that our minds contain a block of wax, which in this or that individual may be larger or smaller, and composed of wax that is comparatively pure or muddy, and harder in some, softer in others, and sometimes of just the right consistency."
preview | full record— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)
Date: w. c. 90, trans. 1611
"A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things."
preview | full record— Matthew the Evangelist
Date: 1632
"Looke as it is with a Gold smith that melteth the metall that he is to make a vessell of, if after the melting thereof, there follow a cooling, it had beene as good it had never beene melted, it is as hard, haply harder, as unfit, haply unfitter, then it was before to make vessell of; but after ...
preview | full record— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)
Date: 1664
"Indeed, one may compare the nerves of the machine I am describing with the pipes in the works of these fountains, its muscles and tendons with the various devices and springs which serve to set them in motion, its animal spirits with the water which drives them, the heart with the source of the ...
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Date: 1665
The understanding "must examine, range, and dispose of the bank which is laid up in the Memory; but it must be sure to make distinction between the sober and well collected heap, and the extravagant Idea's, and mistaken Images, which there it may sometimes light upon."
preview | full record— Hooke, Robert (1635-1703)
Date: 1666
"O truly royal! who behold the law, / And rule of beings in your Maker's mind; / And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw, / To fit the levelled use of humankind."
preview | full record— Dryden, John (1631-1700)
Date: November, 1682
"In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep; / But found their line too short, the well too deep; / And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.
preview | full record— Dryden, John (1631-1700)
Date: 1683, 1823
A man may keep the "precious relics of the divine image from utter defacement, retaining somewhat of his primitive worth and integrity."
preview | full record— Barrow, Isaac (1630-1677)
Date: 1686, 1689, 1697
"Learning ought to be infus'd into the Scholar like spirits into a Bottle, by little and little, for whosoever attempts to pour in all at once, may in all likelihood spill a great part, and in a great measure fill the Vessel with Wind and Air."
preview | full record— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)
Date: 1687
"But, when arrived at last to human race, / The Godhead took a deep considering space; / And, to distinguish man from all the rest, / Unlocked the sacred treasures of his breast; / And mercy mixt with reason did impart, / One to his head, the other to his heart; / Reason to rule, but mercy to f...
preview | full record— Dryden, John (1631-1700)