Date: 1561

A soul purged and "occupied in spirituall ... understanding" may "come to beholde the beautie that is seene with the eyes of the minde"

— Castiglione, Baldassare (1478-1529); Hoby, Sir Thomas (1530-1566), Trans.

Date: 1576

"Ignoraunce [...] maketh him unmeete metall for the impressions of vertue."

— Fleming, Abraham (c. 1552-1607)

Date: 1576

"Then the bookes of conscience shall be opened. Then shall the dead be judged by those thinges which are written in the booke: for theyr works do folow them."

— Gascoigne, George (1534/5- - 1577)

Date: 1577

"The comparisons of, Ynke, and of the spirit: of stones, and of the hart, are of great force. For he expresseth more when he compareth ynke with the spirit of God, adn stones with the harte, than if he had named the spirit and the harte without comparison."

— Calvin, John (1509-1564); Timme, Thomas (fl. 1577)

Date: w. 1365, trans. 1579

"And euerie one hath continuall warre with him selfe in the most secret closet of his minde."

— Petrarch (1304-1374); Twyne, Thomas (1543–1613)

Date: w. 1365, trans. 1579

"For what tempests and madnesse is there in these foure passions, to wit, to hope or desire, and to reioice, to feare and to bee sorie, whiche trouble the poore and miserable minde, by driuing him with sodeine windes and gales, in course far from the hauen into the middes of the dangerous rocks?"

— Petrarch (1304-1374); Twyne, Thomas (1543–1613)

Date: 1580

The Pyrrhonist's mind "is a white sheet prepared to take from the finger of God what form soever it shall please him to imprint therein."

— Montaigne, Michel Eyquem seigneur de (1533-1592)

Date: 1581

"And for that the minde in infantes is like a payre of tables, wherein nothing is written, and like & tender twig which may be bowed euery way, it is cleare, that vertue or vice may easily be planted in it."

— Guazzo, Stefano (1530-1593); Pettie, George, trans. (1548-1589)

Date: 1588

"Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest and keeps incessantly whirling arounnd building up and becoming entangled in its own work, like our silkworms, and is suffocated in it."

— Montaigne, Michel Eyquem seigneur de (1533-1592)

Date: 1586, 1589

"The law of nature is sence and feeling, which everie one hath in himself, and in his conscience, whereby he discerneth between good and evil, as much as sufficeth to take from him the cloke of ignorance, in that he is reprooved even by his owne witnes."

— La Primaudaye, Pierre de (b. ca. 1545); Thomas Bowes (fl. 1586)