Date: c. 10-8 BC

"quidquid praecipies, esto brevis, ut cito dicta / percipiant animi dociles teneantque fideles: / omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat" [Whatever precepts you give, be concise; that docile minds may soon comprehend what is said, and faithfully retain it. All superfluous instructions flow from ...

— Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Horace] (65 BC - 8 BC)

Date: 3rd Century

"The black color of Ethiopia, my homeland, became my lot when it was engendered by the fiery rays of the sun. But my soul, full of white blossoms, won the favor of my understanding master; for beauty is inferior to the nobility of the soul shrouded by my black body."

— Anonymous

Date: 1319

"Only two men of all // Are truly just--whose words the rest ignore, / For the triple sparks of envy, greed, and pride / Ignite their hearts."

— Dante, Alighieri (1265-1321)

Date: 1380-1387

"Thus gan he make a mirour of his minde, / In which he saugh al hoolly hir figure."

— Chaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1340-1400)

Date: 1384

"O Thought, that wroot al that I mette, / And in the tresorie hit shette / Of my brayn!"

— Chaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1340-1400)

Date: 1386-1400

"That oon of hem was blynd and myghte not see, / But it were with thilke eyen of his mynde / With whiche men seen, after that they ben blynde."

— Chaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1340-1400)

Date: 1390

"Minerve for the hed thei soghten, / For sche was wys, and of a man / The wit and reson which he can / Is in the celles of the brayn, / Wherof thei made hire soverain."

— Gower, John (c. 1330-1408)

Date: c. 1420

"Thou woost wel, who shal an hous edifie / Gooth nat ther-to withoute avisament / If he be wys, for with his mental ye / First is it seen, purposid, cast & ment, / How it shal wroght been, elles al is shent."

— Hoccleve [Occleve], Thomas (c.1367-1426)

Date: w. c. 1425-1440

"Then wolle the chambir of my thought trewly / Of plesaunce take a light in eche parté / Such ioy wolle him aray so fresshe and hy / That waken must myn heuy hert slepé / Out of his fowle and sluggissh slogardé."

— Charles [d'Orléans], duke of Orléans (1394-1465)

Date: 1582

"So great a Light hath set my mind on fire, / That flesh and bone consume with secret flame"

— Watson, Thomas (1555/6-1592)