Date: 1636

"So some have looked over their hearts by signs at one time, and have to their thinking found nothing but hypocrisy, unbelief, hardness, self-seeking; but not long after, examining their hearts again by the same signs, they have espied the image of God drawn fairly upon the table of their hearts."

— Goodwin, Thomas (1600-1680)

Date: 1707

"There [in a softer mind] shall his sacred spirit dwell, / And deep engrave his law, / And every motion of our souls / To swift obedience draw."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1707

"'O let my Name ingraven stand, / 'Both on thy Heart and on thy Hand."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1715

"Why, Child, to have the Spirit of God which wrote that Word, print it in your Mind, and give you Understanding both to read and obey it."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1719

"I found it was not so easy to imprint right Notions in his Mind about the Devil, as it was about the Being of a God."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1722, 1723

The "Laws of Honour" may be "printed by the Laws of Nature in the Breast of a Soldier, or a Man of Honour"

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1733, 1742

"I take the Mind or Soul of Man not to be so perfectly indifferent to receive all Impressions, as a Rasa Tabula, or white Paper."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Then the Brain being well furnished with various Traces, Signatures and Images, will have a rich Treasure always ready to be proposed or offered to the Soul, when it directs its Thoughts towards any particular Subject."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"What an unknown and unspeakable Happiness would it be to a Man of Judgment, and who is engaged in the Pursuit of Knowledge, if he had but a Power of stamping all his own best Sentiments upon his Memory in some indelible Characters; and if he could but imprint every valuable Paragraph and Sentime...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"So for Instance, in Children; they perceive and forget a hundred Things in an Hour; the Brain is so soft that it receives immediately all Impressions like Water or liquid Mud, and retains scarce any of them: All the Traces, Forms or Images which are drawn there, are immediately effaced or closed...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)