Date: 392-418

"Led by the joyfulness of that inward, and intelligible sound ... with the eye of the mind ... catching a glimpse, sudden and momentary as it was "

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 395

"For there is, within, the mouth of the heart, where he, who spake these words, and wrote them for us to speak, desired of the Lord that the watch and door of Continence should be set for him."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 395

"But in what He next adds, in order that we might recognize the mouth of the heart, the slowness of our heart would not follow, did not the Truth deign to walk even with the slow."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 395

"The inner man hath an inner mouth, and this the inner ear discerns: what things go forth from this mouth, go out of the heart, and they defile the man."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 395

"And also the same teacher of the Gentiles cries aloud, 'I take pleasure together with the law of God after the inner man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.'"

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 395

"Whosoever, as though secure, shall cease from this laying aside of them, straightway they will assault the Citadel of the mind, and will themselves put it down thence, and will reduce it into slavery to them, captive after a base and unseemly fashion."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

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: 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)