Date: 1902

"Shall we insist that the brain is to be isolated like a leper, that with it alone no permanent and predicable modifications follow from activity, though in both instances the effects are precisely similar and are produced in exactly the same manner?"

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Date: 1902

"Those traits which float like foam on the surface of a man's being should be put in this category."

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Date: 1919

"HANDS, do what you're bid; / Bring the balloon of the mind / That bellies and drags in the wind / Into its narrow shed."

— Yeats, W. B. (1865-1939)

Date: 1949

"Self-consciousness, if the word is to be used at all, must not be described on the hallowed para-optical model, as a torch that illuminates itself by beams of its own light reflected from a mirror in its own insides."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)

Date: 1949

"Similarly, self-control is not to be likened to the management of a partially disciplined subordinate by a superior of perfect wisdom and authority; it is simply a special case of the management of an ordinary person by an ordinary person, namely where John Doe, say, is taking both parts."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)

Date: 1949

"The mind is its own place and in his inner life each of us lives the life of a ghostly Robinson Crusoe."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)

Date: 1949

"Mental states and processes are (or are normally) conscious states and processes, and the consciousness which irradiates them can engender no illusions and leaves the door open for no doubts."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)

Date: 1949

"A person's present thinkings, feelings and willings, his perceivings, rememberings and imaginings are intrinsically 'phospherescent'; their existence and their nature are inevitably betrayed to their owner."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)

Date: 1949

"The inner life is a stream of consciousness of such a sort that it would be absurd to suggest that the mind whose life is that stream might be unaware of what is passing down it."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)

Date: 1949

"True, the evidence adduced recently by Freud seems to show that there exist channels tributary to this stream, which run hidden from their owner."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)