Date: 25 B.C.

"But, Venus, my devoted heart is ever at your service [your slave]. / Have mercy. Why in rancour burn the harvest that is yours?"

— Tibullus, Abius (c. 54-19 B.C.)

Date: c. 10-8 BC

"format enim natura prius nos intus ad omnem / fortunarum habitum: iuvat aut inpellit ad iram / aut ad humum maerore gravi deducit et angit: / post effert animi motus interprete lingua" [For nature forms us first within to every modification of circumstances; she delights or impels us to anger, ...

— Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Horace] (65 BC - 8 BC)

Date: c. 10-8 BC

"an, haec animos aerugo et cura peculi / cum semel imbuerit, speremus carmina fingi / posse linenda cedro et levi servanda cupresso?"

— Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Horace] (65 BC - 8 BC)

Date: c. 10-8 BC

"quidquid praecipies, esto brevis, ut cito dicta / percipiant animi dociles teneantque fideles: / omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat" [Whatever precepts you give, be concise; that docile minds may soon comprehend what is said, and faithfully retain it. All superfluous instructions flow from ...

— Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Horace] (65 BC - 8 BC)

The soul is to the body as a scent is to the flower.

— Epicurus (341-270 B.C.)

Date: c. 43 AD

"It is the mind that makes us rich; this goes with us into exile, and in the wildest wilderness, having found there all that the body needs for its sustenance, it itself overflows in the enjoyment of its own goods."

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

Date: c. 43 AD

"Meanwhile, hampered by mortal limbs and encompassed by the heavy burden of the flesh, it surveys, as best it can, the things of heaven in swift and winged thought."

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

Date: c. 43 AD

"And so the mind can never suffer exile, since it is free, kindred to the gods, and at home in every world and every age; for its thought ranges over all heaven and projects itself into all past and future time."

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

Date: c. 43 AD

"This poor body, the prison and fetter of the soul, is tossed hither and thither upon it punishments, upon it robberies, upon it diseases work their will. But the soul itself is sacred and eternal, and upon it no hand can be laid."

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

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)