Date: 1605, 1640

"By which wordes he declares, not obscurely, that God hath framed the Mind of Man, as a Mirror or Glasse capable of the Image of the universall world, and as joyfull to receive the impressions thereof, as the eye joyeth to receave light; and not only delighted in the beholding, the variety of thi...

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1605, 1640

"For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced."

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1605?

"Within thine eyes (the Mirrors of my minde) / Mine eies behold themselues, wherein they see / (As through a Glasse) what in my Soule I find; / And so my Soules right shape I see in thee."

— Davies, John (1564/5-1618)

Date: 1606

To properly prepare a soul for God, one must "qualify it, cleanse it, strip it, and denude it of all opinion, belief, inclination, make it like a white sheet of paper, dead to itself and the world, so that God may live and operate in it."

— Charron, Pierre (1541-1603)

Date: 1606

"There is a ground or principle written in every mans heart in the world, none excepted, that there is a God."

— Perkins, William (1558-1602)

Date: 1606

"[H]aving sucked and drawne the good" (the "marrow and spirit") from books, one must "feed his mind therewith, informe his judgement, instruct and direct his conscience and his opinions, rectifie his will."

— Charron, Pierre (1541-1603); Lennard, Sampson (d. 1633)

Date: 1606

An "evill and hinderance to wisdome ... is the confusion and captivitie of his passions, and turbulent affections, whereof he must disfurnish and free himselfe, to the end he may be emptie and neate, like a white paper, and be made a subject more fit to receive tincture and impressions of wisdome...

— Charron, Pierre (1541-1603); Lennard, Sampson (d. 1633)

Date: 1607

"[Y]our continuance after in all studious actions, constancy in your fauours and kind disposition (for I must needs say as hee of Augustus -- 'Rarus tu quidem ad recipiendas amicitias, ad retinendas vero constantissimus') these incited mee to cause that which as a sparke lay shrowded in embers in...

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

Date: 1607

"Take this my endeauour I pray you in worth, cheerish and foster this deformed brood of my braine, in the lap (if I may so tearme it) of your good liking."

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

Date: 1704

"Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their be...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)