Date: 397-401

"I was held fast not by the iron of another but by my iron will."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 397-401

"The enemy had a grip on my will and from there made a chain for me and bound me."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 397-401

"I have spilled and scattered ... my thoughts, the innermost bowels of my soul, are torn apart with the crowding tumults of variety."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 397-401

"Only a few succeed in arriving at these reasons with the eye of the mind, and when one does arrive, insofar as is possible, the very one who arrives does not abide in them, but as it were the eye (of the mind) itself is beaten back and repelled."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 397-401

"Surely thy law, O Lord, punishes thievery; yea, and this law is so written in our hearts [lex scripta in cordibus hominum], that iniquity itself cannot blot it out."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 397-401

"et certe non est interior litterarum scientia quam scripta conscientia, id se alteri facere quod nolit pati." ["Assuredly no science of letters can be so innate as the record of conscience, 'that he is doing to another what from another he would be loth to suffer.'"]

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 1633

"within my heart I made / Closets; and in them many a chest; / And like a master in my trade, / In those chests, boxes; in each box, a till: / Yet grief knows all, and enters when he will."

— Herbert, George (1593-1633)

Date: 1675, 1746

"Were it so with the Soul (as some of the Philosophers have vainly imagined) to come into the World as an Ab rasa Tabula, a mere Blank or piece of white Paper, on which neither any Thing, written, nor any Blots; it would then be equally receptive of Good and Evil, and no more averse to the...

— Westminster Assembly (1643-1652)

Date: 1675, 1746

"The Ground needs no other midwifery in bringing forth Weeds, than only the neglect of the Husbandman's Hand to pluck them up; the Air needs no other Cause of Darkness, than the Absence of Sun; nor water of Coldness, than its Distance from the Fire, because these are the genuine Products of ...

— Westminster Assembly (1643-1652)

Date: 1793

"But wicked man! what does he, carnal wretch, / With all his horse-like passions on full stretch?"

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)