Date: 1474

The human mind is a spark...

— Marsiglio Ficino [Marsilius] (1433-1499)

Date: 1543

Reason is like a beam of light.

— Vives, Juan Luis (1492-1540)

Date: 1594

"A far more glorious star thy soul will make / Than Julius Caesar or bright--"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1594, 1623

"But sun it is not when you say it is not, / And the moon changes even as your mind."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1594

"Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding. And the light of that eye, is reason."

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1594

"In the rest there is that light of Reason, whereby good may be known from evil, and which discovering the same rightly is termed right."

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1594

"His meaning is, that by force of the light of Reason, wherewith God illuminateth every one which cometh into the world, men being enabled to know truth from falsehood, and good from evil, do thereby learn in many things what the will of God is; which will himself not revealing by any extraordina...

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1594

"And to conclude, the general principles thereof are such, as it is not easy to find men ignorant of them, Law rational therefore, which men commonly use to call the Law of Nature, meaning thereby the Law which human Nature knoweth itself in reason universally bound unto, which also for that caus...

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1594

"I deny not but lewd and wicked custom, beginning perhaps at the first amongst few, afterwards spreading into greater multitudes, and so continuing from time to time, may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of natural understanding; because men will not bend their wits to examin...

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1597

"Love's heralds should be thoughts, / Which ten times faster glides than the sun's beams / Driving back shadows over louring hills."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)