Date: 1641

"I am not that structure of limbs which is called a human body. I am not even some thin vapour which permeates the limbs - a wind, fire, air, breath, or whatever I depict in my imagination; for these are things which I have supposed to be nothing."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1641

The mind is a craftsman, the body his tool

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1641

"If you do not accept this, then you must untie the knot which in your view must be binding us with adamantine bonds and preventing our mind from soaring above every kind of body."

— Mersenne, Marin (1588-1648)

Date: 1641

"As Lots wife was turned into a Pillar of Salt, that her inconstancie might be fixt, and yet be melting still: So, thou, my Soule, if I had my wish, shouldst be turned into a Pillar of Thoughts; that thy volubility might be restrain'd, and yet be thinking still."

— Baker, Richard, Sir (c. 1568-1645)

Date: 1642

"The heart of man is the place the Devils dwell in: I feel sometimes a Hell within my self; Lucifer keeps his Court in my breast, Legion is revived in me."

— Browne, Sir Thomas (1605-1682)

Date: 1644, 1647

"It must be realized that the human soul, while informing the entire body, nevertheless has its principal seat in the brain."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1647

"False Coin with which th'Impostor cheats us still; / The Stamp and Colour good, but Metal ill!"

— Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667)

Date: 1648

"Thus all common notions which are engraved in the mind have their origin in observation of things or in verbal instruction."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1649

"But since humane flesh (that king of Beasts) began to delight himself in the objects of the Creation, more then in the Spirit Reason and Righteousness, who manifests himself to be the indweller in the Five Sences, of Hearing, Seeing, Tasting, Smelling, Feeling; then he fell into blindness of min...

— William Everard, John Palmer, John South, John Courton. William Taylor, Christopher Clifford, John Barker, Ferrard Winstanley, Richard Goodgroome, Thomas Starre, William Hoggrill, Robert Sawyer, Thomas Eder, Henry Bickerstaffe, John Taylor, &c,

Date: 1650

A kiss "May th'image of each mind expresse / As perfect as the wax the seal"

— Heath, Robert (bap. 1620, d. in or after 1685)