Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"Let the soul be compared to a pair of winged horses and charioteer joined in natural union."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"There abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned; the colourless, formless, intangible essence, visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"At the beginning of this tale, I divided each soul into three parts--two having the form of horses and the third being like a charioteer; the division may remain."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 1596

"Vnderstanding is that facultie in the soale whereby we vse reason: and it is the more principall part seruing to rule and order the whole man, and therefore it is placed in the soule to be as the wagginer in the waggin."

— Perkins, William (1558-1602)

Date: 1607

"Therefore Iulian the Apostata who had flood of inuention, although that whole flood could not wash or rinch away that one spot of his atheisme, he (though not knowing him a right) could say the body was the chariot of the soule, which while it was well manag'd by discretion the cunning coachman,...

— Walkington, Thomas (b. c. 1575, d. 1621)

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)

Date: January, 1730

"Reason and prudence sit not at the helm, in such a mind, to guide and steer the vessel of its body; but wild fancy and imagination, irregular lust and passion, drive it on the destructive rocks of folly, vice and presumption."

— Anonymous

Date: 1731

"And therefore it [the soul] is not present with it only as a Mariner with a Ship, that is, meerly Locally, or knowingly and unpassionately present, they still continuing two distinct Things; but it is vitally united to it, and passionately present with it. And therefore when the Body is hurt, th...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1782

"It is, my dear M----, the same with the rest of our passions;--we have Reason given us for our rudder--Religion is our sheet anchor--our fixed star Hope--Conscience our faithful monitor--and Happiness the grand reward;--we all in this manner can preach up trite maxims."

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1793

In sleep "Our tired attention resigns the helm, ideas swim before us in wild confusion, and are attended with less and less distinctness, till at length they leave no traces in the memory."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)