Date: 1590?, 1623

"Gentle girl, assist me, / And e'en in kind love I do conjure thee, / Who art the table wherein all my thoughts / Are visibly charactered and engraved / To lesson me, and tell me some good mean / How with my honour I may undertake / A journey to my loving Proteus."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1590?, 1623

"My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly, / And slaves they are to me, that send them flying. "

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1590?, 1623

"A little time will melt her frozen thoughts, / And worthless Valentine shall be forgot."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1590?, 1623

"My herald thought s in thy pure bosom rest them"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1592

Elizabeth preferred not "to make windows into men's hearts and secret thoughts, except the abundance of them did overflow into overt and express acts and affirmations."

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; / The thief doth fear each bush an officer."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so, / Let hell make crooked my mind to answer it."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture / Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart; / Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden, / For selfsame wind that I should speak withal / Is kindling coals that fires all my breast, / And burns me up with flames that tears would quench."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel, / As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds, / I come to pierce it or to give thee mine."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"Weep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear; / And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war, / Be blind with tears, and break, o'ercharged with grief."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)