Date: 1594, 1623

"How irksome is this music to my heart! / When such strings jar, what hope of harmony? "

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1597

"Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

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)

Date: 1603

"Now see that noble and most sovereign reason / Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. c. 61-63?, trans. 1611

"Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord."

— Paul of Tarsus (b.c. 10, d.c. 67)

Date: 1651

"Many erroneous opinions are about the essence and original of [the rational soul]; whether it be fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates; whether it be organical, or inorganical; seated in the brain, heart or blood; mortal or immortal; how it comes into the body."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1659

"The minde is sometimes a Bull, sometimes a Serpent, and sometimes a flame of fire; and then the musick of the soule is quite out of tune; the Bells ring backward as in some general conflagration."

— Tubbe, Henry (1618-1655)

Date: 1659

"Nothing puts a man so much out of tune as discontent."

— Tubbe, Henry (1618-1655)

Date: 1664

"You can think of our machine's heart and arteries, which push the animal spirits into the cavities of its brain, as being like the bellows of an organ, which push air into the wind-chests; and you can think of external objects, which stimulate certain nerves and cause spirits contained in the ca...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1667

"Good Conscience, as Davids Instrument, / Drives away th'evil Spirit of discontent."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)