And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth

Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, so it was,

This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd

So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,

He would himself have been a soldier.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.

That inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): I wandered lonely.

As men of inward light are wont

To turn their optics in upon 't.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part iii. Canto i. Line 481.

Men's judgments are

A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward

Do draw the inward quality after them,

To suffer all alike.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act iii. Sc. 13.

There is a luxury in self-dispraise;

And inward self-disparagement affords

To meditative spleen a grateful feast.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Excursion. Book iv.