Date: 1603

"O wretched state, O bosom black as death, / O limèd soul that, struggling to be free, / Art more engaged!"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1603

"And let me wring your heart; for so I shall / If it be made of penetrable stuff, / If damnèd custom have not brassed it so / That it is proof and bulwark against sense."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1603

"And that his soul may be as damned and black / As hell whereto it goes."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1603

"Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul, / And there I see such black and grainèd spots / As will not leave their tinct. "

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1603

"So think thou wilt no second husband wed; / But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1603

"Remember thee? / Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat / In this distracted globe."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1606

An "evill and hinderance to wisdome ... is the confusion and captivitie of his passions, and turbulent affections, whereof he must disfurnish and free himselfe, to the end he may be emptie and neate, like a white paper, and be made a subject more fit to receive tincture and impressions of wisdome...

— Charron, Pierre (1541-1603); Lennard, Sampson (d. 1633)

Date: 1609

"But then begins a journey in my head / To work my mind, when body's work's expired"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1609

"For then my thoughts (from far where I abide) / Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1610

"How happy is he, which hath due place assigned / To his beasts, and disafforested his mind."

— Donne, John (1572-1631)