Date: 370-300 B.C.

"Moreover, the conclusion of this argument of yours is a fine one,--how that for every man who knows not how to make use of his soul it is better to have his soul at rest and not to live, than to live acting according to his own caprice; but if it is necessary for him to live, it is better after ...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 1657

The fancy is a "Boundlesse, restlesse faculty, free from all engagements, diggs without spade, sails without Ships, Flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed, in a moment striding from the Center to the circumference of the world, by a kind of omnipotency creating and ...

— Poole, Joshua (c.1615–c.1656)

Date: 1664

"But the source which produces these spirits is usually so abundant that they enter these cavities in sufficient quantity to have the force to push out against the surrounding matter and make it expand, thus tightening all the tiny nerve-fibres which come from it (in the way that a moderate wind ...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1686, 1712

"Thus Vice and Virtue do my Soul divide, / Like a Ship tost between the Wind and Tide."

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

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: 1691

"This Voyage round the World was made in the Ship of Fancy, which every one knows, like the Cossaks Boats, sails as well by Land as Water.--And now I hope you are satisfied."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1697

"As a Ship at Sea running swiftly thro the Waves, leaves behind a Track, which is almost as soon lost as made, so that no sign can be found of its Passage thro that fluid Element: So the moisture of the Brain may be susceptible of an Idea for the present, but 'tis not lasting, nor is there any si...

— D'Assigny, Marius (1643-1717)

Date: 1700

"Rack'd with my griefs, my Anxious Soul survives, / Dash'd like a ship which with the Billows drives."

— Hopkins, John (b. 1675)

Date: 1715

"The Poet is in the right to say, that the Mind is a Part of Man: for it is, indeed, the informing, but not an assisting Part, as a Mariner in a Ship, and a Coachman in his Box, as the Academicks believ'd."

— Lucretius Carus, Titus (94 B.C.- ca. 49 B.C.); Creech, Thomas (1659-1700)

Date: 1719

"It is as impossible as needless, to set down the innumerable Crowd of Thoughts that whirl'd through that great Thorowfair of the Brain, the Memory, in this Night's Time."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)