Date: 1464

"The mind, to be sure, is like an intellectual book, which sees in itself, and for all, the intention of the author."

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1464

"For Simple Being, which is visible to the mind alone, is to the mind as the being of color is to the sense of sight."

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1464

" [I]f someone were to turn his mind's sight to the possibility, or power, of oneness: he surely would see in every number and in all plurality only oneness's power"

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1464

"Therefore, my dearly beloved Peter, with keen directedness turn your mind's eye to this secret, and with this analysis enter into my writings and into whatever other writings you read, and occupy yourself especially with my books and sermons."

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1741

"But in the middle Stage of Life, or it may be from fifteen to fifty Years of Age, the Memory is generally in its happiest State, the Brain easily receives and long retains the Images and Traces which are impress'd upon on it, and the natural Spirits are more active to range these little infinite...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1748

"And he labours hard to prove that these Ideas are not innate, but would have our Souls like a Blank Paper, a Rasa Tabula, ready to receive Ideas, but void of all; And affirms that these Ideas are the Foundation of all our Knowledge; and that they are conveyed to the Mind by external Objects."

— Anonymous [A Gentleman Late of the Temple, George Osborn]

Date: 1748, 1754

"Nature has therefore endued us with a MIDDLE FACULTY, wonderfully adapted to our MIXED State, which holds partly of Sense and partly of Reason, being strongly allied to the former, and the common Receptacle in which all the Notices that come from that quarter are treasured up, and yet greatly su...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: Tuesday, March 12, 1751

"There is no snare more dangerous to busy and excursive minds, than the cobwebs of petty inquisitiveness, which entangle them in trivial employments and minute studies, and detain them in a middle state, between the tediousness of total inactivity, and the fatigue of laborious efforts, enchant th...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1778

"So steht unser Körper zwischen Seele und der übrigen Welt in der Mitte, Spiegel der Wirkungen von beiden. [Thus our body stands between soul and ambient world, in the middle, mirror of the effect of both.]"

— Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph (1742-1799)

Date: 1780

"The mind, in my opinion, of every well-disposed man, is like a soft mark, or butt; many are the archers in this life, with their quivers full of speeches of every kind; but few amongst them aim aright: some stretch the cord too tight, and the arrow, sent forth with more force than is necessary, ...

— Francklin, Thomas (1721–1784); Lucian (b.c. 125, d. after 180)