Date: 1580
The Pyrrhonist's mind "is a white sheet prepared to take from the finger of God what form soever it shall please him to imprint therein."
preview | full record— Montaigne, Michel Eyquem seigneur de (1533-1592)
Date: 1606
To properly prepare a soul for God, one must "qualify it, cleanse it, strip it, and denude it of all opinion, belief, inclination, make it like a white sheet of paper, dead to itself and the world, so that God may live and operate in it."
preview | full record— Charron, Pierre (1541-1603)
Date: 1704
"It's a kind of tabula rasa, a Blank, that almost with the same Facility receives the Characters of Angel, and of Devil; but when once it's stained with Sin, when it's by-assed by ill Habits, and worse Principles, you will find it stubborn and rebellious."
preview | full record— Darrell, William (1651-1721)
Date: 1756-9
"From their cradle she instilled into them the most perfect maxims of piety, and contempt of the world. the ancient Romans dreaded nothing more in the education of youth than their being ill taught the first principles of the sciences; it being more difficult to unlearn the errours then imbibed, ...
preview | full record— Butler, Alban (1709-1773)
Date: 1771
"The infant mind at coming to the world, is a meer rasa tabula, destitute of all ideas and materials of reflection."
preview | full record— Usher, James (1720-1771)
Date: 1771
"It is a charte blanche, ready for receiving the inscriptions of sense; yet it behoves us carefully to observe, that it differs from a rasa tabula or a sheet of clean paper, in the following respect, that you may write on clean paper; that sugar is bitter, wormwood sweet, fire and f...
preview | full record— Usher, James (1720-1771)