Date: 1530

"Paucis libris vir sapiens contentus est, et quanto sapientior, tanto pauciorum codicum est indigus. Egregie autem eruditus in scrinio pectoris libriariam circunfert."

— Mair [Major], John (1467-1550)

Date: 1532

[The theater of the mind is] "marked with many images, and full of little boxes"

— Camillo, Giulio (1480-1544)

Date: w. 1365, trans. 1579

"And euerie one hath continuall warre with him selfe in the most secret closet of his minde."

— Petrarch (1304-1374); Twyne, Thomas (1543–1613)

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: c. 1603

"But do you suppose, when all the approaches and entrances to men's minds are beset and blocked by the most obscure idols -- idols deeply implanted and, as it were, burned in -- that any clean and polished surface remains in the mirror of the mind on which the genuine natural light of things can ...

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