Date: 1902

"An image is like the painter's Madonna or the sculptor's Diana: it is the result of delicate workmanship."

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Date: 1902

"If it were otherwise, no one could even set down on paper a closely reasoned argument, for the attention would be skipping like a stone hurrying down a sharp incline, or it would be moving hither and thither like a helpless shuttlecock at the mercy of eager players."

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Date: 1902

"Looking back upon our own thought, we observe no Subject, like an admiral on the bridge of his flagship, dictating and controlling, some man above the man or in the man; we only note a process of development which requires no such assumption."

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Date: 1902

"However, in the common order of things, alas, 'the mind is an orchestra, where the musicians are not always in agreement; where the conductor, when there is one, is not always obeyed.'"

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Date: 1902

"Shall we insist that the brain is to be isolated like a leper, that with it alone no permanent and predicable modifications follow from activity, though in both instances the effects are precisely similar and are produced in exactly the same manner?"

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Date: 1902

"Those traits which float like foam on the surface of a man's being should be put in this category."

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Date: 1949

"Self-consciousness, if the word is to be used at all, must not be described on the hallowed para-optical model, as a torch that illuminates itself by beams of its own light reflected from a mirror in its own insides."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)

Date: 1949

"Similarly, self-control is not to be likened to the management of a partially disciplined subordinate by a superior of perfect wisdom and authority; it is simply a special case of the management of an ordinary person by an ordinary person, namely where John Doe, say, is taking both parts."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)

Date: 1949

"The mind is its own place and in his inner life each of us lives the life of a ghostly Robinson Crusoe."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)

Date: 1949

"Mental states and processes are (or are normally) conscious states and processes, and the consciousness which irradiates them can engender no illusions and leaves the door open for no doubts."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)