Date: w. c. 63 A.D.

"Moreover, we ought not to allow our desires to wander far afield, but we must make them confine themselves to our immediate neighbourhood, since they will not endure to be altogether locked up."

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

Date: 1588

"My mind to me a kingdom is; / Such perfect joy therein I find / That it excels all other bliss / Which God or nature hath assign'd."

— Dyer, Sir Edward (1543-1607)

Date: 1588

"I laugh not at another's loss, / Nor grudge not at another's gain; / No worldly waves my mind can toss; / I brook that is another's bane."

— Dyer, Sir Edward (1543-1607)

Date: 1604

"How are the Soule and Body, Spirite and Flesh coupled together, what chaynes, what fetters imprison a spirituall Substance, an immortal Spirit in so base, stinking; and corruptible a carkasse?"

— Wright, Thomas (c. 1561-1623)

Date: 1604

"For, as the Ratte running behinde a paynted cloth, betrayeth her selfe; even so, a Passion lurking in the heart, by thoughts and speech discovereth it selfe, according to the common Proverbe, ex abundantia cordis os loquitur, from the aboundance of heart, the tongue speaketh: for as a Riv...

— Wright, Thomas (c. 1561-1623)

Date: w. 1628, published in 1684, 1701

"The writers displayed many geometrical truths before my very eyes, as it were, and derived them by means of logical arguments"

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: w. 1628, published in 1684, 1701

"This is similar to the way in which we know that the last link in a long chain is connected to the first: even if we cannot take in at one glance all the intermediate links on which the connection depends, we can have knowledge of the connection provided we survey the links one after the other, ...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: w. 1628, published in 1684, 1701

"For the human mind has within it a sort of spark of the divine, in which the first seeds of useful ways of thinking are sown, seeds which, however neglected and stifled by studies which impede them, often bear fruit of their own accord."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: w. 1628, published in 1684, 1701

"But since it is not easy to review all the connections together, and moreover, since our task is not so much to retain them in our memory as to distinguish them with, as it were, the sharp edge of our mind, we must seek a means of developing our intelligence in such a way that we can discern the...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: w. 1628, published in 1684, 1701

"We can best learn how mental intuition is to be employed by comparing it with ordinary vision."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)