Date: 1389

"The soule ... muste suffre for the bonde of the body that he is joyned to."

— Trevisa, John (b. c. 1342, d. in or before 1402); Bartholomeus (1203-1272)

Date: 1464

"For Simple Being, which is visible to the mind alone, is to the mind as the being of color is to the sense of sight."

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1464

" [I]f someone were to turn his mind's sight to the possibility, or power, of oneness: he surely would see in every number and in all plurality only oneness's power"

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1464

"Therefore, my dearly beloved Peter, with keen directedness turn your mind's eye to this secret, and with this analysis enter into my writings and into whatever other writings you read, and occupy yourself especially with my books and sermons."

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1641

"Now if we are to become aware of something, it is necessary for the thing to act on the cognitive faculty by transmitting its semblance to the faculty or by informing the faculty with its semblance. Hence it seems clear that the faculty itself, not being outside itself, cannot transmit a semblan...

— Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)

Date: 1688

"Here's Cavities, says one; and here, says he, / Is th' Seat of Fancy, Judgment, Memory: / Here, says another, is the fertile Womb, / From whence the Spirits Animal do come, / Which are mysteriously ingender'd here, / Of Spirits from Arterious Blood and Air: / Here, said a third, Life made her fi...

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: 1698

"From all which Considerations, (any One of which might suffice,) I may Safely and Evidently conclude, that, in point of Evidence of its Truth, and Stability of its Grounds, nothing can be any way comparable to the Light which strikes the Eye of our Understanding, by its steady Rays emitted from ...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: 1698

"This Proposition, then, say we, is such, that our Understanding no sooner opens its Eye, to take a View of it, but it must assent to it, because of the Self-evident Identification of its Terms; whose Self-Evidence we do therefore make our Rule."

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: 1698

"Lastly, As this pretended Necessity of Explicating, and Meditating, quite degrades yours from being the Genuin, First, and, consequently, the Right Rule of Knowing Truth; so it abets ours, and gives it a Clear Title to be such a Rule, since the Self-evidence of those First Truths, express'd by I...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"Of all the Causes which conspire to blind / Man's erring Judgment, and misguide the Mind, / What the weak Head with strongest Byass rules, / Is Pride, the never-failing Vice of Fools."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)