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Date: 380-360 B.C.

"But while we may admit that each soul wears out a number of bodies, especially if it lives a great many of years--because although the body is continually changing and disintegrating all through life, the soul never stops replacing what it worn away--still we must suppose that when the soul dies...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

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Date: 360-355 B.C.

"'Having' [knowledge] seems to me different from 'possessing.' If a man has bought a coat and owns it, but is not wearing it, we should say he possesses it without having it about him."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

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Date: c. 400 AD

"How can the soul be one with what it wears [i.e., the body]? For a shirt is not one with the person wearing it."

— Nemesius of Emesa (fl. c. 390)

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Date: c. 1016-1021

"These bodily members are, as it were, no more than garments; which, because they have been attached to us for a long time, we think are us, or parts of us [and] the cause of this is the long period of adherence: we are accustomed to remove clothes and to throw them down, which we are entirely un...

— Avicenna [Ibn Sīnā] (c. 980-1037)

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Date: 1593

"[A]s wee apparaile our selves in Beastes skinnes, in self same sort we clothe our soules in theyr sinnes"

— Nashe, Thomas (bap. 1567, d. c. 1601)

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Date: 1598

"Sorrow so royally in you appears / That I will deeply put the fashion on, / And wear it in my heart."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

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Date: 1600

"Such harmony is in immortal souls, /But whilst this muddy vesture of decay / Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

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Date: 1611

"And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God."

— Author Unknown

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Date: 1611

"I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels."

— Author Unknown

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Date: 1648

"Thus a man who is dressed can be regarded as a compound of a man and clothes. But with respect to the man, his being dressed is merely a mode, although clothes are substances. In the same way, in the case of a man, who is composed of a soul and a body, our author might be regarding the body as t...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.