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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)

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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)

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Date: 1597

"That our swift-wingèd souls may catch the King's, / Or like obedient subjects follow him / To his new kingdom of ne'er-changing night."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

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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)

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Date: 1660, 1676

"For a scrupulous conscience does not take away the proper determination of the understanding; but it is like a Woman handling of a Frog or a Chicken, which, all their friends tell them, can do them no hurt, and they are convinced in reason that they cannot, they believe it and know it ;...

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)

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Date: 1691

"Twice every day a thousand Fancies and Fegaries crowd into my Noddle so thick as if my Brain kept open-house for all the Maggots in nature."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

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Date: 1704

"For, it is the opinion of choice virtuosi, that the brain is only a crowd of little animals, but with teeth and claws extremely sharp, and therefore cling together in the contexture we behold, like the picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like bees in perpendicular swarm upon a tr...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: 1718

"'From forth thy Bosom turn the Viper-Guest, / 'Or, e'er he bite thee, crush him at thy Breast"

— Amhurst, Nicholas (1697-1742)

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Date: 1729

"We have a faint Image of these Operations in Hawking: For Memory may be justly compar'd to the Dog that beats the Field, or the Wood, and that starts the Game; Imagination to the Falcon that clips it upon its Pinions after it; and Judgment to the Falconer, who directs the Flight, and who governs...

— Dennis, John (1658-1734)

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Date: 1732

"Malice, and Lust, voracious Birds of Prey, / That out-soar Reason, and our Wishes sway; / Desires' wild Seas, on which the wise are tost, / By Pilot Indolence, are safely crost."

— Mitchell, Joseph (c. 1684-1738)

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