Date: 416

"And then at times a man's slave, worn out by the commands of an unfeeling master, finds rest in flight. Whither can the servant of sin flee? Himself he carries with him wherever he flees. An evil conscience flees not from itself; it has no place to go to; it follows itself."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 413-427

"And this grand and wonderful instinct belongs to men alone of all animals; for, though some of them have keener eyesight than ourselves for this world's light, they cannot attain to that spiritual light with which our mind is somehow irradiated, so that we can form right judgments of all things."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 413-427

"Wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of man is God, of whom the sacred writings of the Hebrews say, 'Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.'"

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 413-427

"Does not Tully, disputing of the difference of governments, ... say, that we command our bodily members as sons, they are so obedient, and that we must keep a harder form of rule over our mind's vicious parts, as our slaves?"

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: c. 421

The soul "commands the body as a king commands his subjects or a parent his children. It commands lust as a master commands a slave, since it coerces and breaks it. Kings, emperors, magistrates, fathers, peoples rule their subjects and associates as the soul rules the body. Masters harass their s...

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: Mid 5th Century

"The soul therefore was never a writing-tablet bare of inscriptions; she is a tablet that has always been inscribed and is always writing itself and being written on by Nous."

— Proclus (c. 411-85)

Date: Written not before 512

"So I continued to ponder all the questions in my mind, not swallowing what I had heard, but rather chewing the cud of constant meditation."

— Boethius (480-524/5)

Date: Written not before 512

"At last the door opened to my mind's knocking, and the truth which I found in my inquiry disclosed all the fogs of Eutychian error."

— Boethius (480-524/5)

Date: 537, 1533

"celas etiam ut ita dixerim, speculum mentis [mirror of mind] tuae, ubi te omnis aetas ventura possit inspicere."

— Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus(c. 484/490 - c. 585)

Date: 731

"Ond he eal þa he in gehærnesse geleornian meahte mid hine gemyndgade, ond swa swa clæne neten eodorcende in þæt sweteste leoð gehwerfde." And he was able to learn all that he heard; and remembering within him, just as a clean animal chewing cud [ruminating], he turned it into the swe...

— Bede (672/3 - 735)