Date: 360-355 B.C.
"When a man has in his mind a good thick slab of wax, smooth and kneaded to the right consistency, and the impressions that come through the senses are stamped on these tables of the 'heart'--Homer's word hints at the mind's likeness to wax--then the imprints are clear and deep enough to last a l...
preview | full record— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)
Date: 1606
An "evill and hinderance to wisdome ... is the confusion and captivitie of his passions, and turbulent affections, whereof he must disfurnish and free himselfe, to the end he may be emptie and neate, like a white paper, and be made a subject more fit to receive tincture and impressions of wisdome...
preview | full record— Charron, Pierre (1541-1603); Lennard, Sampson (d. 1633)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"But there is this farther Argument in it against their being innate: That these Characters, if they were native and original Impressions, should appear fairest and clearest in those Persons, in whom yet we find no Footsteps of them."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"Characters drawn on Dust, that the first breath of wind effaces; or Impressions made on a heap of Atoms, or animal Spirits, are altogether as useful, and render the Subject as noble, as the Thoughts of a Soul that perish in thinking; that once out of sight, are gone for ever, and leave no memory...
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: Dated August 6, 1707; 1711
"The mind of man is at first (if you will pardon the expression) like a tabula rasa, or like wax, which, while it is soft, is capable of any impression, till time has hardened it."
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: Jan 7 1712/13
"The Heart must be Tabula Rasa, white Paper to his Pen, soft Wax to his Seal: Let him write upon me what he pleaseth, and make what Impressions he pleaseth upon me."
preview | full record— Henry, Matthew (1662-1714)
Date: 1718
"A thousand little Nerves She sends / Quite to our Toes, and Fingers Ends; / And These in Gratitude again / Return their Spirits to the Brain; / In which their Figure being printed / (As just before, I think, I hinted) / Alma inform'd can try the Case, / As She had seen upon the Place. // Thus, w...
preview | full record— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Date: 1721, 1722
"This noble passion is indeed always engraved upon their hearts; but imagination and education mould it a thousand ways."
preview | full record— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Date: 1724
"If I have here touch'd a young Lady's Vanity and Levity, it was to show her how beautiful she is without those Blots, which certainly stain the Mind, and stamp Deformity where the greatest Beauties would shine, were they banish'd."
preview | full record— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)
Date: 1739
"My great Redeemer's name--transporting name! / 'Tis graven on my heart, 'tis deep imprest, / Immortal is the stamp; nor life, nor death, / Nor hell, with all its pow'rs, shall blot it thence."
preview | full record— Rowe [née Singer], Elizabeth (1674-1737)