Date: 380-360 B.C.

"And purification, as we saw some time ago in our discussion, consists in separating the soul as much as possible from the body, and accustoming it to withdraw from all contact with the body and concentrate itself by itself, and to have its dwelling, so far as it can, both now and in the future, ...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 380-360 B.C.

"Every seeker after wisdom knows that up to the time when philosophy takes it over his soul is a helpless prisoner, chained hand and foot in the body, compelled to view reality not directly but only through its prison bars, and wallowing in utter ignorance."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"And when this feeling continues and he is nearer to him and embraces him, in gymnastic exercises and at other times of meeting, then the fountain of that stream, which Zeus when he was in love with Ganymede named Desire, overflows upon the lover, and some enters into his soul, and some when he i...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 45 B.C.

"sed tamen nullum theatrum virtuti conscientia maius est" [But yet there is no greater theatre for virtue than one's own consciousness.]

— Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 B.C. - 43 B.C.)

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: w. 56-64

"It is a mistake to imagine that slavery pervades a man's whole being; the better part of him is exempt from it: the body indeed is subjected and in the power of a master, but the mind is independent, and indeed is so free and wild, that it cannot be restrained even by this prison of the body, wh...

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

Date: 101

"But if you consider what is proper for a man, examine your store-house, see with what faculties you came into the world."

— Epictetus (c. 55-c.135)

Date: c. 160 A.D.

"I need not trouble you with his criticisms of the other two; but his objection to the man, and the fault he found with Hephaestus, was this: he should have made a window in his chest, so that, when it was opened, his thoughts and designs, his truth or falsehood, might have been apparent."

— Lucian of Samosata (125 A.D. - 180 A.D.)

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: Written not before 512

"At last the door opened to my mind's knocking, and the truth which I found in my inquiry disclosed all the fogs of Eutychian error."

— Boethius (480-524/5)