Date: 1259

In our minds "the divine image shines."

— St. Bonaventure [born Giovanni di Fidanza] (1217-1274)

Date: 1273

"But the human intellect, which is the lowest in the order of intelligence and most remote from the perfection of the Divine intellect, is in potentiality with regard to things intelligible, and is at first 'like a clean tablet on which nothing is written,' as the Philosopher says (De Anima iii, ...

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"Therefore the soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body; thus heat, which is the principle of calefaction, is not a body, but an act of a body."

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"But the soul does not operate; for, as the Philosopher says (De Anima i, 4), 'to say that the soul feels or understands is like saying that the soul weaves or builds.'"

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"We may therefore say that the soul understands, as the eye sees; but it is more correct to say that man understands through the soul."

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"According to the Philosopher (Ethic. ix, 8), a thing seems to be chiefly what is principle in it; thus what the governor of a state does, the state is said to do. In this way sometimes what is principle in man is said to be man; sometimes, indeed, the intellectual part which, in accordance with ...

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"For that whereby primarily anything acts is a form of the thing to which the act is to be attributed: for instance, that whereby a body is primarily healed is health, and that whereby the soul knows primarily is knowledge; hence health is a form of the body, and knowledge is a form of the soul."

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"For the relation of phantasms to the intellect is like the relation of colors to the sense of sight, as he says De Anima iii, 5,7. Therefore, as the species of colors are in the sight, so are the species of phantasms in the possible intellect."

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"Thirdly, because the action of a motor is never attributed to the thing moved, except as to an instrument; as the action of a carpenter to a saw. Therefore if understanding is attributed to Socrates, as the action of what moves him, it follows that it is attributed to him as to an instrument"

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

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)